
□0DQ27TSEEA 






\ £B& X/' ' 

• C^>' / jv a WM\W *• 

47 V, C V * A V v* 

* at * (r^^4 ^ ^ 



^ * 

^ #W ** ^ *+stv*r% «v -* 

A <v *rf 7 f* ,G* -o, fc 

* • *€» A o ® " * * «^ rt V • i • * * **r» 

♦ O .1 K" * ««C<^ a t* i»U t * ___ * O 


r . 

# 4 *9 ^ 

o ® " • * ^ 

i *> # *jp^cv .<» A 



C %**>To» , 0 - 

a0' * * * «* ^ V 

• >&* & ♦t/A^/k- ^ *' 


w :< 
-■ 


% *^w?:* G <r ^ -.f^v ** * *•>«&?♦* <& % • 

*.\ ' , 0 * ,*‘JJ* ”*© “ V»> ..... ^ '** „*° ,,. V 

V. « C tjNB&g* °.„ jT .VgSSirC. ^ C° .•;^' °. 




(U 


* f * 




:*»: K •: 

a* <«V vC» * * 67 *£>. «» 

A <* ‘^77?*’ .0^ ’-... 

* - * - * 0 ? . i . , 

* 



: o* 


a©* 


e H 0 





, 4 

o \0 rf, 

*> ^ v <#V * 

> -- o # a0 "a 

“ “ A 0 ^ ’ « - 

<0 *> V v »»*' 

4 ^ 



J* c.T 




^ % 





o sP 

~ - v^ Awr * * 

<T* ^ “w 

%, *•’ * 


# • <1 


r o ^ 


AT o * * ° * ^ 

W ♦*o« v v 




* i 0 ^ . 

’ "’" ^ ^ *•••“ * 9 ^ *•*<’•* ^ r ’o. ~ * # V« 0 

W* ; jfe': W %/ / 

‘ < '*o. ’ * ‘ .>* '*** >•; . ‘ • . . v* * ' ’ ^ . . . • . < 



<* 4 '7Vi* ,0 


0 •» « 


C o 


V F ~ 4 «* * * 

^ ^ f p 


>* • 



: 




» 



mmmsi 


' \A U U A ^ J, 

[| rejigs 25® <p 

KJ V % 

J tSrvy 



\rX «' vr ^ 

||lg; 


HAItPE%B!\OTH.E^S 

FRANKLIN SQUARE, N. Y. 

— | 






























♦ 





















* 































































































Am, 















ft 














X V S' • 

\ v > o a ) 












/ 



DOLPHIN TAKING CARE OF # THE CHILDREN. 

Jr 

* 

* 













A SERIES OF NARRATIVES, DIALOGUES, BIOGRAPHIES, AND TALES, 
FOR THE INSTRUCTION AND ENTERTAINMENT 
OF THE YOUNG. 


C Y 




^P%orvtv<3Hr'fy? 

!! ■' 

v No 


\a 


igmtollisljEi initjj 

NUMEROUS AND BEAUTIFUL ENGRAVINGS. 


V lli- V«V ! J. 

•ft . ■>*.%/ :■* 

-**t _ . 


c 


1 * 5 *- 



* 















f 




* 



























































. 








































. ? 





















i 


* 

















% 

















AND 


OP SELF-INSTRUCTION. 


HARPER 8c BROTHERS. PURL ISHERS 


?7(o 
vA ix 
12 


Entered, according to an Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight 
hundred and fifty-five, by 

HARPER & BROTHERS, 

in the Clerk’s Office for the Southern District of New York. 


55 




PREFACE. 


As it is probable that many of the readers of this volume of the 
Story Books may not have read the one entitled Timboo and Jol- 
iba, I ought here to state for their benefit that Timboo was a 
South Sea Island boy, that was brought to this country by a sea- 
captain about two years before the time when this story com- 
mences. After sailing about the world with the sea-captain for 
several years, he left him at last in New York, and went up the 
North Biver in search of some employment on land. He soon en- 
gaged himself to work for a gentleman named Cheveril, who lived 
near a pleasant village on the river, where there were four children. 
Their names were Oscar, Carroll, Mark, and Fanny. Fanny was 
the youngest. 

Here Timboo taught himself to read, and he also taught Fanny. 

Timboo had a room at Mr. Cheveril’s in the end of a shed. This 
room he had fitted up for himself ; and though it was very rough 
in all its appointments, he had made it quite a pleasant place, and 
the children liked very much to go there. 

All these things are explained in detail in the Story Book en- 
titled Timboo and Joliba. 

Joliba was Timboo’s parrot. 



















- 


































































CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I. MARK -. 13 

II. PRUDENCE 16 

III. THE LODGE * 19 

IV. THE FOUR FRAMED PICTURES 25 

V. TIMBOO’S MAGAZINE 35 

VI. ELEANOR 37 

VII. THE ROBBERY 41 

VIII. THE REFERENCE 46 

IX. TIMBOO’s SECRET 49 

X. THE FIRST WRITING-LESSON 55 

XI. DOLPHIN 60 

XII. ENCOURAGEMENT 64 

XIII. RIGHT AND WRONG WAYS 73 

XIV. NEW LESSON 78 

XV. OLD RICKATOO 87 

XVI. JACKET JOHN 92 

XVII. THE TRIPLICHORD 98 

XVIII. fanny’s improvement 104 

XIX. THE BUTTERFLY SONG 108 

XX. THE STORM AT SEA 114 

XXI. THE SONGS 122 

XXII. OH TOM ! TOM ! 128 

XXIII. PLAYING IN THE GARDEN 139 

XXIV. SAFE NAVIGATION 145 

xxv. Virginia’s school 152 














N. 
















































































. 






















ENGRAVINGS. 

v 


PAGE 

DOLPHIN TAKING CARK OP THE CHILDREN Frontispiece . 

SCRAMBLING OUT 14 

PRUDENCE . . . . 17 

SCHOOL OUT 21 

THE MILK-PAN 22 

THE CASTLE 26 

PLEASANT YARD 2'J 

THE COAL-CARS ", ' 31 

THE SUPERSCRIPTION 33 

NOON • 37 

NIGHT 39 

TIMBOO AND MARK 41 

THE ROBBERY 44 

JOE CROPPER 46 

UGLY BOY 52 

MARCO 53 

JAMES 54 

THE TROTTING SONG 58 

* 

JOLIBA 63 

TOMMY 72 

WRONG SIDE 74 

THE TUMBLE 76 

WAITING FOR THE STAGE 82 

THE CARRIAGE 85 

THE WILD-CAT 88 

BAT ASLEEP 89 

91 


OLD RICKATOO 


Xll 


ENGKAV1NGS 


* 


READING 

THE SOLDIERS 

UGLY BONNET 

MUSIC 

THE SNOW-BIRDS 
CHILDREN LOOKING. . 
THE ENGLISH COAST 

THE SCHOONER 

THE LIGHT-HOUSE . . . 

THE ESCAPE 

THE ROBIN 

SNOWY MORNING 

PIN LOST 

LOADING THE BOAT . 

THE RETURN 

TOM IN THE ICE 
VIEW OF THE RIVER 

THE-FLOWERS 

THE SQUIRREL 


PAGE 

93 

95 

96 
103 
106 
112 
115 
118 
119 
121 
123 
126 
126 
127 
127 
133 
141 
144 
146 


TIMBOO AND FANNY. 


CHAPTER I. 

MARK. 

Mark in the wood-shed. Fanny’s picture. Mark wants to see it. 

ANE morning, early in the spring, Fanny, with a paper in her 
^ hand, came out through an open shed, where her brother 
Mark was busily employed trying to split a log with beetle and 
wedges. 

Mark asked her where she was going. 

4 4 1 am going to find Timboo,” said she. 

44 What do you want of Timboo ?” asked Mark. 

44 1 want him to tell me what this picture means,” said Fanny. 

So saying, Fanny held up the piece of paper which she had in 
her hand, though she was yet too far from Mark for him to reach it. 

44 Bring it here,” said Mark, extending his hand. 44 I’ll tell you 
what it means.” 

44 No,” said Fanny, “you don’t know.” 

Fanny held the picture behind her, as if she were afraid that 
Mark would take it away from her. 

She was afraid, indeed, that he would take it away from her. 

44 Come and show it to me,” said Mark. 44 I’ll give it back to 
you as soon as I have seen it.” 


14 


MARK 


Mark makes a promise. 


Fanny shows the picture to him. 


“No,” said Fanny. 

“I really will give it back to you,” said Mark, “just as quick 
as I have seen it. I will, upon my honor.” 

Fanny at last allowed herself to be persuaded, and, relying on 
Mark's promise, she brought the picture forward and put it into 
his hand. It was this : 



SCRAMBLING OUT. 


“ It is only a picture of some boys in a swimming,” said Mark. 
“ Some of them are scrambling out, and miming up the bank as 
fast as they can.” 

“ And what are they scrambling out for ?” asked Fanny. 

“ I don’t know exactly,” replied Mark. “ Let me see.” So he 


MAUK. 


15 


Fanny can not get her picture again. Mark doing wrong. 

stood gazing at the picture very intently, and wondering what it 
could mean. 

“ There is a man running too,” said Mark. 

“Yes,” said Fanny. 

“And a horse,” said Mark. 

“Yes,” said Fanny; “hut what does it mean ?” 

“ Why, you see,” said Mark, “ I suppose that that horse is run- 
ning away, and the boys are scrambling out of the water to run 
and help the man catch him.” 

Fanny looked over Mark as he spoke, but she was not quite 
satisfied with the explanation. 

“No,” said she, “I don’t believe that is it. Besides, I knew 
you could not explain it to me. I am going to show it to Tim- 
boo.” 

So Fanny attempted to take the picture, but Mark turned away 
from her with it, in order to look at it a little longer. 

“ Give it to me,” said Fanny, in a complaining tone. “You 
promised to give it to me as soon as you had looked at it.” 

“No,” replied Mark, “I promised to give it to you as soon as 
I had explained it to you, and I have not finished explaining it to 
you yet. Here is something over the other side of the water that 
I have not had time to see.” 

So Mark began walking away from Fanny, turning to one side 
and the other to avoid her as she followed him, in order to get a 
longer time to look at the picture. 

He acted very wrong in so doing. He had promised to give the 
picture back to his sister as soon as he had explained it to her, 


16 


PRUDENCE. 


Mark’s course was foolish as well as wrong. Fanny’s threat. Prudence. 

meaning by that as soon as he had had time to look at it, and ex- 
press his opinion of the meaning of it. Besides, independently of 
that promise, he was bound to give it back at once, for it belonged 
to Fanny, and every one has a right to the possession of their own 
property whenever they call for it, whether there is any promise or 
not, unless they have positively agreed to give it up for a time to 
others for a consideration. 

Mark acted very foolishly also, as well as wrong, in doing thus. 
Whenever we make any difficulty or delay in returning the prop- 
erty of others which they have intrusted to us, we only make them 
unwilling to intrust their property to us again. The reason why 
Fanny had been so reluctant to allow Mark to look at her picture 
was because she knew, from former experience, that if he once got 
it into his hands, she might have some difficulty in recovering it. 

“Mark!” said Fanny, in a very severe tone, “if you don’t 
give me back my picture immediately, I shall go directly and tell 
Prudence.” 


CHAPTER II. 

PRUDENCE. 

Prudence was the girl who lived at Mr. Cheveril’s. On the 
opposite page is a picture of her, going with Mark to market. 
She has a basket in her hand in which to carry home her market- 
ing. She lias stopped to look at a bird in a cage which Mark is 
pointing out to her. 

Prudence was a very good girl, and she was always very kind 


PRUDENCE, 


17 


Picture of Prudence going to market. 


to the children. When she was satisfied with their behavior, she 
would often give them milk to drink if they were thirsty, and pieces 



PRUDENCE- 


B 


9 


18 


PRUDENCE. 


The crow in the cage at the provision-store. 

of bread and butter, and cake, if they were hungry. Then, be- 
sides, she could tell very interesting stories to them about what 
she did when she was a child on her father’s farm. 

So Mark and Fanny liked Prudence very much, and they took 
great pains to please her. She would often take one of them with 
her when she went to market. The market was a sort of provi- 
sion-store in a by-street of the village. There was a bench out- 
side the door, where the market-man kept his vegetables. Over 
the bench was a cage with a bird in it. This bird was a crow, 
which a boy had caught in the woods when it was young, and had 
sold it to the market-man. The market-man had put it in a cage, 
and had kept it till it had grown up. He usually kept this cage 
hung against the wall of his market-house, just outside the door. 

Mark liked very much indeed to go with Prudence when she 
went to market. He liked particularly to see the crow. 

“ It is a very pretty bird,” said he to Prudence, pointing to the 
crow. 

“Yes,” said Prudence. v 

“But I don’t think it is nearly as pretty as Timboo’s Joliba,” 
said Mark. 

“ Oh no,” said Prudence. “ I never saw any bird that was as 
pretty as Timboo’s Joliba.” 

Joliba was Timboo’s parrot. 

When Mark heard Fanny threaten that she would go and tell 
Prudence, in the conversation related in the last chapter, he at once 
gave up the contest, and delivered the picture back into her hand. 


THE LODGE. 


iy 


It is more noble to do right voluntarily than by compulsion. Timboo’s lodge. 

How much more noble it is for a boy to do right of his own ac- 
cord, from the influence of an inward principle of duty, than to be 
driven to it by a selfish fear ! 


CHAPTER III. 

THE LODGE. 

Timboo called his room the lodge. I don’t know exactly why. 

The room was in the end of a shed, and it was very rudely fin- 
ished and furnished. Timboo had, in fact, made the room him- 
self, and he had also made nearly all the furniture that there was 
in it. The room had a very attractive appearance, however, and 
there was every thing in it that was required for Timboo’s use and 
enjoyment. There was a large window on the south side, where 
the sun came in very pleasantly, and made it warm even in cool 
weather. Besides, there was a little stove in one corner, where 
Timboo could have a fire whenever he wished for one. 

Timboo had pictures hung up about the walls of his room. 
Some of these pictures he had drawn himself, with pen and ink. 
F or frames, he had, in some cases, pasted strips of blue paper all 
around the margin of them, which had a very pretty effect as they 
hung upon the walls of his lodge. Some of the larger ones had 
frames made by means of border-paper. This border-paper was 
some that the children had found in the garret. It had been left 
over in papering a room in the house. These border-papers some- 
times make very pretty frames for pictures that are to be put up 
in such a room as Timboo’s lodge. 


20 


THE LODGE. 


Timboo’s garden-seeds. Why Fanny did not like to go to school. 

When Fanny went into the lodge, she found Timboo sitting at 
a large table, near the sunny window, arranging garden-seeds. 

“What are you doing, Timboo?” said Fanny. 

“I am getting out the garden-seeds,” said Timboo, “and ar- 
ranging them, so as to have them all ready when the time comes 
for making the garden.” 

“ Oh dear me!” said Fanny. 

“ What’s the matter ?” asked Timboo. 

“Why, when the time comes for making the garden,” replied 
Fanny, in a mournful tone, “ the roads will all be dry, and then I 
shall have to go to school again.” 

“And don’t you like to go to school ?” inquired Timboo. 

“No,” said Fanny. 

“Nor should I if I were you,” said Timboo. “As it is, I should 
like to go to school very much, because I am old enough to have 
a good time sitting at my desk and studying. But you are not 
old enough for that, I suppose.” 

“Why, Timboo, we don’t have any desk,” said Fanny. “All 
we have to do is to sit on a bench and be still.” 

“ I should not like that,” said Timboo. 

“And then, if we can’t tell what the hard words spell, we have 
a mark,” said Fanny. 

“ That’s bad,” said Timboo. 

“And if we look oif our books in the class, then we have an- 
other mark,” added Fanny. 

“ That’s bad too,” said Timboo. 

“ And if we laugh, then we have two marks,” added Fanny. 


THE LODGE. 


21 


What Timboc said to Fanny about going to school. 

“ That’s the worst of all,” said Timboo ; “ and I don’t wonder 
that yon do not like to go to school.” 

Almost all young children feel as Fanny did in respect to going 
to school. They are sorry when the time comes to go in, and glad 
when the time comes for them to be let out. They would much 
rather race about out of doors, chasing butterflies or leaping over 



SCHOOL OUT 


one another, than to be obliged to sit still on a bench with noth- 
ing to do. I do not think they are much to be blamed for this. 
Nor did Timboo. 

u I don’t wonder that you don’t like to go to school,” said he. 
“ I should not like to go if I were you. Indeed, if I were a child 
as old as you, I should manage in such a way as not to go to 
school at all.” 

“ How would you manage ?” asked Fanny. 

“All ! that’s a secret,” said Timboo. 

“ Tell me,” said Fanny ; “ do.” 


22 


THE LODGE. 


Fanny’s picture. 


The agreement. 


Timboo’s picture. 


“First let me see what you have in your hand,” said Timboo. 
“ It’s a picture,” said Fanny ; “I want you to explain it to me.” 
So Fanny laid her picture down upon the table before Timboo, 
and asked him what it meant. ► 

“ Mark says,” she added, u that that horse is running away, and 
that the boys are coming out of the water to help the man catch 
him.” 

“ No,” said Timboo, “ I think that is not it. I think I know 
what it is, and I will explain it to you if you will explain a pic- 
ture to me.” 

“ Well,” said Fanny, “ I will.” 

“ And you must explain mine first,” said Timboo. 

“Web,” said Fan- 
ny, “ let me see it.” 

So Timboo opened 
a little portfolio made 
of a book-cover, which 
lay on the back part of 
his table, and took out 
a small picture, which 
he showed to Fanny. 
It was this. 

Fanny examined the 
picture very attentive- 
ly, while Timboo went 
on with his work of ar- 
ranging his seeds. 



THK MILK PAN. 



THE LODGE. 


23 


Fanny undertakes to explain the picture. The meaning of “ foreground” and “ background.” 

“Do you understand it?” asked Timboo. 

“ Yes,” said Fanny, “ I understand it very well.” 

“Explain it to me, then,” said Timboo. 

“It is a girl bringing in a pan of milk,” said Fanny, “and a 
kitten mewing for the girl to give her some.” 

“ That is not all,” said Timboo. 

“Why, there is a boy with a drum,” said Fanny. 

“ Is he drumming on his drum ?” asked Timboo. 

“No,” said Fanny. “He has got but one drumstick. He 
has lost the other, I suppose. Besides, he wants some milk, and 
he has come to ask the girl to give him some.” 

“ Is that all ?” asked Timboo. 

“No,” replied Fanny.. “There is a little girl sitting at the 
table behind. She has got some milk already.” 

“ In describing a picture,” said Timboo, “ we don’t commonly 
say behind — we say in the background .” 

“ It is not ground at all,” said Fanny. “ It is in a room.” 

“ That makes no difference,” replied Timboo. “ The front part 
of the picture is called the foreground, and the back part the back- 
ground, whether it is in a room or out of doors.” 

Timboo was right in this. The regular and proper way to have 
described his picture would have been as follows : 

In the centre is a girl, with a straw hat upon her head, and with 
her dress pinned up to keep it clean, bringing in a pan of milk. 
To the right, in the foreground, is a boy with a drum and one drum- 
stick, looking at the milk., and wishing that he had some. In the 
foreground, to the left, is a cat, looking up and mewing for some of 


24 


THE LODGE. 


Timboo explains Fanny’s picture. Teaching definitions. 

the milk. In the background, likewise to the left, a young child 
is sitting at a table, eating bread and milk from a bowl, apparently 
very contented and happy. 

After Fanny had looked at Timboo’s picture as long as she 
pleased, she turned her attention again to her own, and asked Tim- 
boo what he thought the boys in her picture were doing. 

“ I know what they are doing,” said Timboo, “ for I read about 
• that picture in a book. The place where those boys have gone in 
a swimming is a canal. They undressed themselves on the bank 
of the canal, and laid down their clothes near the tow-path.” 

“What is the tow-path?” asked Fanny. 

“It is the path that is made along the bank of the canal,” re- 
plied Timboo, “ for the horses to walk in to draw the boats. The 
horses draw the boats by means of a long rope called the tow-line. 
Can you see the boat in your picture ?” 

“No,” said Fanny. 

“It is in the background, on the right,” said Timboo, “at the 
farther side of the water.”* 

“ Ah, yes,” said Fanny, “I see it now. I did not know what 
it was. It is a boat loaded with goods. There is a man at the 
end of it, steering it.” 

“At the stern of it,” said Timboo. 

“Yes,” said Fanny, “at the stern of it. I can see the great 
rudder running out behind.” 

“ Can you see the tow-rope ?” asked Timboo. 

“ Where shall I look for it ?” asked Fanny. 

* See the engraving representing this picture on page 14. 


THE FOUR FRAMED PICTURES. 


25 


Fanny thought the tow-rope was a clothes line. The pictures on the wall. 

“Between the horse and the how of the boat,” said Timboo. 
“It is the rope that the horse draws the boat by.” 

“Yes,” said Fanny, “I see it. There it is, running straight 
across the water. I thought it was a clothes-line, with clothes 
hanging upon it.” 

“ Those are the boys’ clothes,” said Timboo. “You see, when 
the horse came along the tow-path, drawing the boat, the tow-line 
caught among the boys’ clothes, which were lying on the bank, and 
is carrying them away, and the boys are running after them.” 

“Ah, yes,” said Fanny, “I understand it now.” 


CHAPTER IY. 

THE FOUR FRAMED PICTURES. 

“ But, Timboo,” said Fanny, “ tell me how I can manage so as 
not to have to go to school.” 

As Fanny asked this question, she turned round to look, for the 
twentieth time, at the pictures which Timboo had hung up upon 
his wall. There were a great many of them, and they were hung 
low, so that children could see them conveniently. 

“ This is a picture of a castle, I suppose,” said she. 

The picture which Fanny referred to was a representation of a 
castle among the rocks. There were two round towers, and an 
arched door-way between them. In the foreground were two or 
three figures. The picture was quite a pretty one, and it was sur- 
rounded by a very pretty border which Timboo had made to it. 
You may see a representation of it in the following engraving. 


THE FOUR FRAMED PICTURES 


26 


Timboo’s picture of the ancient castle. 






THE FOUR FRAMED PICTURES. 


27 


The castle windows. The ladies. The parasol. 

“What funny little windows there are in this castle!” said 
Fanny. 

“Yes,” said Timboo. “In castles they have the windows 
small, so that the enemy can not shoot into them. The castle- 
men, who stand inside, can shoot out through the little windows, 
but the enemy that are without can not shoot into them very well.” 

“Yes,” said Fanny, “I understand. But come, Timboo, tell 
me what the secret is.” 

“ Some of the windows are very long and narrow, and are shaped 
like a cross,” continued Timboo. 

“Yes,” said Fanny, “I see them. But what is the secret, 
Timboo?” 

Timboo did not answer, but went on putting up his seeds. 

“What are these people doing here in this picture, in the front 
part?” asked Fanny. 

“ In the foreground you mean,” said Timboo. 

“Well,” said Fanny, “in the foreground.” 

“ Look at them, and see if you can not tell,” rejoined Timboo. 

“Why, there is a lady,” said Fanny, “and a little girl taking 
a walk, and their clothes are blowing all about. It must be a very 
windy day.” 

“Yes,” said Timboo. 

“And the little girl’s parasol is turned inside out by the wind,” 
said Fanny. 

“ Then,” remarked Timboo, “ I think it must be very windy in- 
deed.” 

“Do you think the lady lives in that castle?” asked Fanny. 


28 


THE FOUR FRAMED PICTURES. 


Fanny's question. The row of pictures. The country house. 

“No,” said Timboo ; “ most likely she lives in some village or 
town near by.” 

“Come, Timboo,” said Fanny, after another short pause, “tell 
me how I can manage so as not to have to go to school.” 

“I can’t tell you to-day very well,” said Timboo, “but I will 
tell you some time or other.” 

“ Ah, no,” said Fanny, “ I want you to tell me to-day, because I 
want to begin as soon as possible, so as not to have to go to school.” 

“ Oh, you could not do it,” said Timboo. 

“Why not?” asked Fanny. “Is it very hard?” 

“No,” said Timboo, “ it is not very hard, but it requires a great 
deal of patience and perseverance.” 

The picture of the castle which Fanny had been looking at was 
one of four, which were placed on the wall along in a row. Two 
of these pictures were large and two were small. The two large 
ones were at the two ends of the row, and the small ones were in 
the middle. 

The castle, of course, was at one end of the row. The large 
picture which was at the other end represented a man giving a 
girl a letter for her mother at the gate of his house. We shall 
come to this picture by-and-by, but not just now ; for the next 
picture which Fanny came to was a small one. It was not very 
small, though it was smaller than the others. 

It represented a very pretty country house in England, with a 
thatched roof and large square windows. 

“ What a pretty house this is !” said Fanny. “ Do you know, 
Timboo, who lived in it ?” 


THE FOUR FRAMED PICTURES. 


29 


Another of Timboo’s pictures. The trellis. The door-yard. 



“No,” said Timboo, “I do not. Do you see the trellis over 
the door?” 

“ Over which door?” asked Fanny. 

“ Over the left-hand door,” said Timboo. 

“ Yes,” said Fanny, “ I see it. And there is a very pretty yard 
in front of the house, with a good smooth place to play . I should 



30 


THE FOUR FRAMED PICTURES. 


Fanny’s question again. Fanny’s guess. One way of avoiding being sent to school. 


like to run about there and play. There is a man there now, but 
I don’t see what he is doing. 

“But, Timboo,” she continued, after musing a moment about 
the picture, “I don’t see why you can’t tell me how I must man- 
age so as not to have to go to school.” 

“You must guess,” said Timboo. 

“ How many times must I guess ?” said Fanny. 

“ Three times,” said Timboo. “ If you will guess three times, 
and don’t get right then, I will tell you, though not to day.” 

“Well,” said Fanny, “I will guess.” Then, after a moment’s 
pause, she added, “ I suppose it is that I must cry every time I 
am sent to school, and make a great deal of trouble.” 

“ Oh no,” said Timboo, “that is not the way. That way suc- 
ceeds sometimes, I know, when a child has a very foolish mother, 
but it would not succeed very well with your mother. Besides, it 
is a bad way.” 

“What are all these cars in the next picture?” asked Fanny. 

“ They are coal-cars,” replied Timboo. “ There is a coal-mine 
there somewhere among the mountains, and that is a train of cars 
loaded with coals, that are going to be taken away to some town 
in the neighborhood.” 

“ I don’t think it is a very pretty train ?” said Fanny. 

“Nor do I,” said Timboo. 

“ I don’t like such pictures as that very well,” said Fanny. 
“ I think my picture of the boys running after the clothes is pret- 
tier than this.” 

“ Yes,” said Timboo. 


THE FOUR FRAMED PICTURES 



“Especially,” added Fanny, “when I understand vvliat it 
means.” 

“ True,” said Timboo ; “ and if I were you, when I put it in my 
picture-book, I would write the explanation underneath.” 

“But I don’t know how to write, Timboo,” said Fanny. 

“ Ah !” said Timboo, “ have not you learned to write yet ?” 


32 


THE FOUR FRAMED PICTURES. 


Timboo advises Fanny to learn to read story-books. 


“No,” said Fanny. 

“ That’s unlucky,” said Timboo. “It is very convenient to 
know how to write, and how to read writing too.” 

“I can read printing,” said Fanny. “And I remember that 
you showed me how to learn the letters.” 

“It is very convenient to know how to read,” said Timboo. 
“You can read story-books.” 

“ Only,” continued Fanny, “ I can’t read fast enough to read 
story-books. I like to have my mother read them to me best.” 

“ It is more convenient to read them to yourself,” said Timboo, 
“ because very often your mother is busy, and she can not read to 
you.” 

“ Yes,” replied Fanny, “ she is almost always busy.” 

“ So it would be much better,” added Timboo, “for you to 
learn to read fast enough to read the story-books yourself. But 
it is time for you to make your other guesses.” 

“ Well,” said Fanny, “ I guess — you mean — let me see. You 
must mean for me to make believe that I am sick, and then they 
won’t send me to school. Is that it ?” 

“.No,” said Timboo. “It is true that that plan is adopted by 
children very often, and it succeeds very well for particular days, 
but- it does not answer very well for all the time. Besides, it is 
wrong to do that. It is wrong to make false pretenses, no matter 
what you gain by it.” 

“ Timboo, what is this girl doing in the next picture?” 

“ She is taking a letter to carry home to her mother,” said 
Timboo. 


THE FOUR FRAMED PICTURES, 


33 


The fourth picture in Timboo’s lodge. 



9 



34 


THE FOUR FRAMED PICTURES. 


Timboo’s description. 


Superscription. 


Fanny’s letter. 


“The man who stands inside the gate,” added Timboo, “has 
given her the letter, and is waiting to see if she can read the su- 
perscription of it.” 

“ What do you mean by the superscription?” asked Fanny. 

“ It means what is written on the back of the letter. Scription 
means something written. A subscription is what is written un- 
der any thing. A superscription is what is written over it, or on 
the back of it. The man who has given the girl the letter is now 
waiting to see whether she can read the superscription.” 

“And can she?” asked Fanny. 

“Yes,” said Timboo; “she sees that it is for her mother, and 
she looks quite pleased and surprised. It is very convenient to 
be able to read writing.” 

“I wish I could read writing,” said Fanny. 

“Yes,” said Timboo, “I wish you could. 

“You see, by-and-by, when you grow a little older,” continued 
Timboo, “ some day or other a note or a letter will come to you, 
and then you will wish to be able to read it.” 

“ I had a letter once,” said Fanny. “ It was from my father. 
It was when he was at Washington.” 

“And could you read it ?” asked Timboo. 

“No,” said Fanny ; “my mother read it to me.” 

“It is much more convenient to be able to read your letters 
yourself,” said Timboo. 

“Besides,” he added, “by-and-by, when you grow up to be a 
large young lady, and are old enough to be married, and some 
young gentleman that you like writes you a note to ask you if you 


TIMBOO’S MAGAZINE. 


H5 


Advantages of knowing how to read. 


How Timboo learned to write. 


are willing to be his wife, and go and live with him in a nice house 
that he is building, with a pretty garden full of fruits and flowers 
behind it, what a pity it would be if you could not read the let- 
ter!” 

“Yes,” said Fanny, mournfully, “it would be a great pity.” 

Fanny’s countenance assumed a very thoughtful and sad ex- 
pression as she mused for a moment on the melancholy picture 
which Timboo had presented to her mind. She began really to 
wish that somebody would teach her to read writing. 

“ Besides,” said Timboo, after a short pause, “ if you could read 
writing, you could read my magazine yourself, instead of my hav- 
ing always to read it to you.” 

“ Yes,” said Fanny, “ so I could.” 

“And if you could write as well as read writing, you might 
make a magazine of your own,” said Timboo. 


CHAPTER Y. 

TIMBOO’S MAGAZINE. 

Timboo had a book which he called his magazine. It was a 
large square book, ruled with faint lines of blue ink. When Tim- 
boo first bought this book, it was blank, but now it was almost en- 
tirely full of stories, pictures, dialogues, narratives, and little songs 
that he had written in it. He wrote these things in his magazine 
in order to teach himself to write. It was more amusing to write 
such things, he thought, than it would be to transcribe copy-slips, 
such as are used at schools. 


36 


TIMBOO’S MAGAZINE. 


The chirographical magazine. 


How to fasten pictures in a scrap-book. 


“ And if I write these things as carefully as I should write copy- 
slips,” said he to himself, “ it will be just as well.” 

It was, in fact, a great deal better, for by writing continuously in 
this way he learned to write a uniform and fluent hand, such as mer- 
chants’ clerks learn to write in copying letters in the counting-room. 

The title in full of Timboo’s book was the Chirographical Mag- 
azine, and this name was printed neatly, in large capitals, on the 
title-page of the book. The word chirographical means that which 
pertains to handwriting, so that chirographical magazine would 
mean a collection of articles written with the pen. This word was, 
however, too long and hard for the children to pronounce readily, 
and so they called Timboo’s book simply the magazine. 

Fanny and Mark liked very much to have Timboo read to them 
out of his magazine, and Timboo, knowing this, wrote many of 
the articles in it expressly to amuse them. 

Timboo put pictures into his book to illustrate the stories. 
Sometimes he drew these pictures himself with a pen, but more 
frequently the illustrations consisted of engravings from old worn- 
out books, which he cut out, and wafered in at the proper places in 
the magazine by means of white wafers. One white wafer an- 
swered for two pictures, for Timboo always split the wafer with 
his penknife, and then quartered each of the halves. This made 
eight pieces, each one of which was enough for one corner of a pic- 
ture. 

When the pictures were tumbled, Timboo would press them 
smooth before putting them in. For this purpose, he would damp 
them a little by putting them between sheets of damped newspa- 


ELEANOR. 


37 


A story from Timboo’s magazine. 

per, and then press them under a hoard by placing weights upon 
the top of it. 

Some of the stories which Timboo wrote in his magazine were 
descriptions of pictures. The story of Eleanor was one of these. 


CHAPTER VI. 


ELEANOR. 



NOON. 


Here we see Eleanor eating her dinner. She has been away 
to the village to get a parcel for her mother, and has just got home. 


38 


ELEANOR. 


The story which Timboo wrote about Eleanor. 

Her mother saved some dinner for her, and Eleanor is now eating 
it. Her mother and her little brother Jingo are standing by, to 
talk with her while she is eating her dinner* and to ask her ques- 
tions about her walk to the village. 

“ Are you very tired ?” asked her mother. 

“No,” says Eleanor, “not very.” 

“It was a pretty heavy parcel,” says her mother. 

“Oh no,” replied Eleanor, “it was not heavy at all. I could 
bring it very easily by stopping now and then to rest.” 

You can see the parcel which Eleanor brought standing up 
against the cupboard, on the left, in the picture. It is a pretty 
large parcel, and it must have been quite inconvenient to carry. 
But Eleanor likes to be useful, and is pleased when she can ac- 
complish a great deal of work. Accordingly, whenever she has 
any thing to do that is hard, instead of complaining of it because 
it is hard, she is only proud and happy to find that she is able to 
do it. 

The room is a plain farmer’s kitchen. Eleanor sits in an old- 
fashioned chair, which has a curiously-formed back. She is eating 
her dinner with a spoon. 

There is a stove in the room, with a steaming tea-kettle and a 
saucepan on the top of it. Beyond the stove, and high up upon 
the wall, is a shelf. There are two other shelves at the back side 
of the room, with plates upon the upper one, and candlesticks and 
pitchers below. There is a bar fastened before the upper shelf to 
keep the plates from falling out. 

On the opposite page is a picture of Eleanor in her bed-room. 


ELEANOR. 


39 


Eleanor mending Jingo’s clothes. 

Jingo has gone to bed and is fast asleep ; his bed is in the back 
side of the room. Eleanor is mending his clothes. She mends 
them after he has gone to bed, so as to have them all ready for 
him the next morning. 



NIGHT. 


When Eleanor observes a place that requires mending in Jingo’s 
clothes, she says nothing at the time, but remembers it. She does 
not call him to her and say, 44 Now, Jingo, you have tom your 
clothes. How did you do- it ? I must mend them. I’ll mend 
them to-night, after you have gone to bed. Be sure not to let me 
forget.” 



40 


ELEANOR. 


How Eleanor takes care of her brother. More about the picture. 

It would do no good to say all this. It would only be bringing 
up disagreeable thoughts to Jingo’s mind, and to the minds of all 
the people of the house that might happen to be within hearing. 
The idea of clothes torn or injured, or of any other unpleasant ac- 
cident or damage, is a disagreeable idea, and the less we publish 
disagreeable ideas the better. 

Eleanor knows this, and so, when she observes any rent in her 
brother’s clothes, she says nothing, but remembers it ; and then at 
night, after he has gone to bed, she takes the clothes, without say- 
ing any thing to any body, and mends them. 

Thus Jingo always looks neat, and yet Eleanor gets very little 
praise for it. She does not do it to be praised for it by others. 
She does it for the sake of the inward satisfaction of doing her 
duty and of being useful. 

The chairs in this bed-room are of the same kind as the one in 
the other picture, where Eleanor was eating her dinner at noon. 

What a pretty lamp it is that Eleanor is sewing by ! 

It is a warm summer evening, and Eleanor has left her window 
open to admit the air. There stands on the window-sill a flower- 
pot, containing a geranium which Eleanor raised from a slip. 

The cat, with her three kittens, are lying asleep upon the floor. 

I observe by the clock that it is about twelve minutes past ten. 


THE ROBBERY. 


41 


Timboo and Mark. 


The magazine again. 


A new story. 


CHAPTEE VII. 


THE ROBBERY. 


u 

Li 



TIMBOO AND MARK. 


One day, when Timboo and Mark 
were walking along together through the fields, 
on the bank of the river, coming home from a 
place where they had been at work burning up 
the brushwood, at a place near the shore, Mark 
asked Timboo if he had written any new stories 
in his magazine book lately. 

STo,” said Timboo, “but I am going to write one this evening/’ 
What is it about ?” asked Mark. 


“ It is about a robbery,” said Timboo. 



42 


THE ROBBERY. 


Timboo’s story of the robbery. 


Joe Cropper. 


Shepherd. 


“A robbery!” said Mark, surprised. 

“Yes,” said Timboo, “ I think we might call it a robbery.” 

“Did it happen any where about here?” asked Mark. 

“Yes,” said Timboo, “it happened up the river here a little 
way.” 

“ Tell me all about it,” said Mark. 

“ Why, there is a man,” said Timboo, “whose name is Shep- 
herd. He lives in a small house about a couple of miles from 
here.” 

“ Whom did he rob ?” asked Mark. 

“He robbed a fellow named Joe Cropper,” replied Timboo. 
“He was going along the road one day, and he saw Joe in a field 
walking about. Joe had a good warm coat on his back, and 
Shepherd thought it would do very well for him the next winter, 
so he determined to take it away from Joe the very first oppor- 
tunity.” 

“ And did he ?” asked Mark. 

“ Yes,” said Timboo. “ A few days after this, he caught Joe in 
a little field behind his barn, and pulled him along, and threw him 
down upon the ground. Joe struggled all he could to get away, 
but Shepherd was the strongest, and so Joe could not do any 
thing.” 

“Why did not he call out?” asked Mark. 

“ He did call out as loud as he could,” replied Timboo, “but 
nobody came to help him. Several people heard him calling, but 
they did not come. So at length, when he found it did no good 
to resist, he submitted quietly, and let Shepherd take off his coat, 


THE ROBBERY. 


43 


Timboo continues the story of the shepherd robbery. 


though it was on so tight that Shepherd had to cut away the fast- 
enings. After he got the coat off he let poor Joe go away.” 

“What a shame!” said Mark. “And did not any body see 
him ?” 

“ Yes,” said Timboo, “ there was a lady and a child pretty near 
there, looking on all the time.” 

“ Why did not they scream ?” asked Mark. 

“ I don’t know,” replied Timboo. “ They stood by, looking on 
very quietly, as if they did not think there was any thing wrong 
in the affair.” 

“That’s very strange,” said Mark. 

“ Yes,” said Timboo ; “ and so I am going to write an account 
of it in the magazine. I have got a picture of it in my lodge.” 

“ I mean to go and see it,” said Mark, “ as soon as I get home.” 

“Well,” said Timboo, “you will find it on my table.” 

“ I suppose,” said Mark, after a short pause, “ that the man 
came up from New York. There are ever so many bad men in 
New York, who come up the North River by the steam-boats and 
cars, and commit murders, and robberies, and all sorts of crimes. 

“ But then,” he continued, “ I don’t see why that lady did not 
make an alarm.” 

“ She did not,” said Timboo ; “ she looked on quietly all the 
while.” 

“ At any rate,” said Mark, “ I want to see the picture.” 

Accordingly, as soon as Timboo and Mark reached home, Mark 
went into the lodge and looked upon Timboo’s table. Turn over 
the leaf, and you will see the picture that he found there. 


44 


THE ROBBERY 


Shepherd stealing Joe Cropper’s coat. 



THE ROBBERY. 


“This is not the picture,” said Mark, astonished. “This is 
the picture of a sheep-shearing.” 

Then, a moment afterward, he added, 

“ But there is the lady and child looking on. This must be it, 



THE ROBBERY. 


45 


Mark’s accusation against Timboo. 


Timboo's defense. 


after all. It is nothing but a sheep-shearing. The warm coat is 
the fleece, and Joe Cropper is this ram. Timboo has been mak- 
ing a fool of me.” 

So Mark went off in high dudgeon to find Timboo and call him 
to account for making false representations. He found him in the 
barn. 

“ Timboo,” said he, “ you have been making a fool of me. You 
said it was a robbery, but it is only a sheep-shearing.” 

“ I did not say it was actually a robbery,” replied Timboo. “ I 
said I thought you might call it a robbery. The man took Joe 
Cropper’s warm coat away from him against his will, by violence, 
because he wanted to make one out of it for himself. If that is 
not robbery, I should like to know what you call it.” 

“ I call it a sheep-shearing,” said Mark. “ Besides, you said 
it was a man named Joe Cropper.” 

“No,” replied Timboo, “I said it was a fellow named Joe 
Cropper.” 

“Well,” said Mark, “a sheep is not a fellow.” 

“ What is a fellow?” asked Timboo. 

Mark, having no precise definition of the word fellow ready at 
hand, was somewhat posed by this question ; but, after some hes- 
itation, he said that he did not know exactly what a fellow was, 
but he was sure it was not any such thing as .a sheep. 

“ Besides,” added Mark, “ you said he bellowed. A sheep can’t 
bellow, you know very well.” 

“ Why not ?” asked Timboo. 

“Because,” said Mark. “Because — he can’t. He can bleat. 


46 


THE REFERENCE. 


Why the sheep was called Joe Cropper. Deception. 

Bulls bellow. Then, besides,” lie added, after a pause, “ a sheep 
could not be named Joe Cropper.” 

“The children call- 
ed him so,” said Tim- 
boo. “ They caught 
him cropping grass in 
the field one day, and 
hence they named him 
Cropper. Joe was his 
name before.” 

These statements of 
Timboo, so promptly 
asserted, somewhat si- 
lenced Mark, but still 
he did not appear to be 

JOE CROPPER. . , A A 

convinced. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE REFERENCE. 

In the course of that day, Mark told the story of the robbery of 
Joe Cropper to Fanny, and made complaint to her of Timboo’s 
having deceived him by making him think it was a man. 

“ Don’t you think it was deception ?” said he. 

“Yes,” said Fanny, “ I am sure it was.” 

So they went both out into the garden to find Timboo, in order 
that Mark might renew the charge of deception against him. 


THE REFERENCE. 


47 


The children agree to leave the question to Prudence. 

“We will leave it out to somebody to decide for us,” said Tim- 
boo, when they had found him and had made their complaint, 
“and if they say it was deception, I will submit to any punish- 
ment they shall decide upon.” 

“Well,” said Mark, “ and whom shall we leave it to ?” 

“ What do you say to leaving it to Prudence ?” said Timboo. 

“ Agreed,” said Mark. “ She will decide against you, I know.” 
So he and Fanny ran off into the house to tell Prudence that they 
were going to leave a case to her, and that she must be sure to de- 
cide against Timboo. 

“I’ll wait,” said Prudence, “ till I hear what the case is.” 

“ Why, it is just this,” said Mark ; and he was proceeding to 
relate the circumstances of the case, when Prudence interrupted 
him, saying that she could not hear it one-sided. 

“You must wait till Timboo comes,” she said. 

So it was agreed to postpone the case until the evening, when 
Timboo would be in the house. 

Accordingly, after tea, Mark and Fanny went into the kitchen 
to attend to the business of the reference. Oscar and Carroll, their 
brothers, having heard of the case, went too. 

When they were all ready, Mark stated the case, and in farther 
illustration of it, and in confirmation of the view which he took of 
the subject, he produced the picture, which Timboo had lent him 
for the purpose, and showed it to Prudence. 

“ So you see,” said he, in winding up his statement of the 
case, “that it was not any robbery at all, but only a sheep-shear- 


48 


THE KEFEKENCE. 


Timboo’s argument. The sentence. The punishment. 

Prudence then asked Timboo what he had to say for himself. 

“Yes,” repeated Mark, triumphantly, “what have you got to 
say for yourself ?” 

“ All I have to say,” replied Timboo, “ is, that if Mark had ever 
been a sheep himself, and any body had taken off his wool early 
in the season, and left him to go about in the cold winds with 
nothing on his back to keep him warm, just so that they might 
have coats to wear the next winter themselves, he would have been 
perfectly satisfied to have called it a robbery, I am well convinced ; 
but as he never has been a sheep, I don’t think he can judge.” 

Mark looked somewhat perplexed by this argument, and Pru- 
dence laughed. 

After all, however, Timboo’s ingenuity and eloquence in making 
his defense did not save him. The current was against him. All 
wished to have him punished, Prudence as much as the rest; so 
she decided against him, and for punishment she sentenced him to 
make a poetical confession of his fault. 

“The confession must be ready tO-morrow evening,” said she, 
“and it must be read here before all this company.” 

Accordingly, the next evening, after tea, the same company as- 
sembled in the kitchen to hear Timboo’s confession. It was as 
follows : 

“ With sorrow I confess in rhyme 
That I’ve been guilty of a crime — 

I called a sheep a fellow ; 

And then, to make the case more strong, 

And double, as it were, the wrong, 

I called his bleat a bellow. 


TIMBOO’S SECRET. 


49 


Mark’s merriment. Timboo and Fanny again. 

“ Next time, you’ll see, I’ll mind my jokes, 

And not attempt the boys to hoax 
With any squib or quibble ; 

For this was only just a squib, 

You could not call it quite a fib, 

’Twas just a little fibble.” 

Mark laughed aloud, and capered about the room with delight 
at hearing these stanzas, and then, seizing the paper from Tim- 
boo’s hands, he read it over again, interrupting himself, however, 
continually with peals of laughter. When he finished it, he threw 
himself down upon a bench, crying out, “ Oh, Timboo, what a boy 
you are ! Oh fibble ! oh squibble !” and so he ran off with the 
paper into the parlor to read the poetry to his mother. 


CHAPTER IX. 

TIMBOO’S SECRET. 

“Come, Timboo,” said Fanny, one day, a short time after the 
affair of the reference, “ you have never told me your secret about 
how I shall manage so as not to have to go to school.” 

It was a pleasant spring morning when Fanny said this, and 
Timboo was at work in the garden at the time, raking up the straw 
and stubble. It was beginning to be pretty dry in the garden, 
though it was still wet in the roads, and no arrangement had yet 
been made for sending Fanny to school. 

“What is the way to manage?” asked Fanny. “You said 
that you would tell me if I could not guess, and I have guessed 
all the ways I can think of.” 

9 


D 


50 


TIMBOO’S SECRET. 


The conversation about the reasons for sending children to school. 


“ What is the reason why people send children to school ?” ask- 
ed Timboo. 

“ To have them learn,” said Fanny. 

“ That is one reason,” replied Timboo, “but it is not the only 
one. There is another very important reason besides that.” 

“What is it?” asked Fanny. 

“ They send them to school to get them out of the way,” said 
Timboo. 

“I don’t think my mother sends me to school for that,” said 
Fanny. 

“ I think it probable that she does not,” said Timboo. “ Still, 
perhaps you are sometimes a little troublesome.” 

Fanny did not answer. 

Timboo was undoubtedly right in supposing that one of the rea- 
sons why children are sometimes sent to school is because they are 
troublesome at home, and their mothers wish to have them out of 
the way a part of the time, so that they can themselves have a 
little peace. Almost all children, when they are young, are more 
or less troublesome. They like to hear noise themselves, and they 
do not consider how disagreeable it is to grown people. They ac- 
cordingly train about the house, and blow whistles, and beat drums, 
or whine and fret when any thing displeases them, so that their 
mothers send them to school partly in order to have the house still 
for a few hours in the day. 

Sometimes this troublesomeness arises from mere thoughtless- 
ness and inconsideration ; but then, on the other hand, it some- 
times results from the influence of a selfish spirit, or from an ugly 


TIMBOO’S SECRET. 


51 


Bad boys. 


Account of young Inchbald. 


His sister. 


temper. Some boys, who have not been properly controlled and 
governed when they were young, are so turbulent and unmanage- 
able when they grow up to be ten or twelve years old, that they 
are the torment of the house, so that there can be no peace or quiet 
until they are sent away to school. There is some excuse for such 
boys, I am aware, in the fact that they are growing all the time, 
and thus their size, and the strength of their limbs, and the power 
of their voices, are insensibly but rapidly increasing, and they are 
often not aware how much force they exercise and how much noise 
they make. This excuse, however, does not apply in all cases. 

I knew a boy named Inchbald. His mother indulged him when 
he was young, and so, when he grew older, she could do nothing 
with him. He seemed to take a pride in violating all those rules 
of propriety which govern the conduct of gentlemen. He was 
domineering in his manners, and tyrannical in his treatment of all 
who would submit to him. He took special pleasure in teasing 
and tormenting his sister, although she was two or three years 
older than himself ; and when company came to the house, instead 
of feeling under any restraint while they were there, he seemed to 
act worse than ever, by way of showing how independent he was 
of all control. 

One day, when his father and mother were away, a gentleman 
and lady came to spend the evening with young Inchbald’s sister, 
and in the course of the evening they proposed to have some mu- 
sic. Miss Inchbald was to play, and they were themselves to 
sing. So they all drew up to the piano together ; but Rufus, for 
that was his name, determined to spoil their pleasure ; so he caught 


52 


TIMBOO’S SECKET. 


Rufus’s bad behavior. 


The reason why children are sent away to school. 


the cat, and held 
two drumsticks in 
her paws, and be- 
gan to thrum with 
these on the keys 
of the piano when- 
ever his sister at- 
tempted to play. 
His sister could do 
nothing with him, 
and the company were finally compelled to give up the music al- 
together. 

His mother, when she came home and heard an account of Ru- 
fus’s behavior, resolved to send him off to school the very next 
week. 

But to return to Timboo and Fanny. 

“How my secret,” said Timboo, “is this. The two reasons 
why children are sent to school are, first, that they may learn to 
read and write, and, secondly, to get rid of their noise and the 
trouble they make at home. Of course, all you have to do, if you 
wish not to go to school, is, first, to go to work and learn to read 
and write yourself at home, and, secondly, not to make any noise 
or give any trouble.” 

“ But I have not got any body to teach me at home,” said 
Fanny. 

“You must teach yourself,” said Timboo. “I teach myself, 
and I get along very well.” 



TIMBOO’S SECRET. 


53 


Fanny resolves to learn to read and write. Marco’s study. 

“ Well,” said Fanny, “ I will teach myself to write, if you will 
help me.” 

“Ah! but I don’t think you will have perseverance enough,” 
said Timboo. 

“Yes,” said Fanny, “I am sure I shall have perseverance 
enough. 

“ Only,” she added, “ I have not got any desk at home, or any 
table to write on. I could learn very well if I only had a good 
place.” 

“ That makes very little difference,” said Timboo. “ It does 
not depend upon place; it depends upon disposition.” 

This was very true. Good progress in study is not by any 
means made sure by providing a boy with conveniences for his 

work, however perfect they may be. 
I know a boy whose uncle provided 
him with a most excellent and com- 
fortable arm-chair, well cushioned, 
and gave him a very pleasant place 
in the corner of a library. His desk 
was furnished with all the books and 
writing implements that he could pos- 
sibly require ; and yet, instead of im- 
proving all these advantages, the boy 
spent the greater part of his time one 
day in playing and looking out at the 
window, and so he learned nothing at 
all. Here you see him. His name was Marco. 




54 


TIMBOO’S SECRET. 


James’s study. Success in studying depends on the student. Timboo’s plan. 

In the next picture, on the other hand, you see represented a 

boy whose conveniences and fa- 
cilities are far inferior to those of 
Marco, and yet he is making the 
best possible use of them. His 
desk is small and narrow, his seat 
is a hard bench, and his books 
are very few. 

Timboo explained to Fanny 
that her success in teaching her- 
self to write at home would de- 
pend very little on her having 
a nice desk, and good pens, and 
a comfortable seat, and a quiet 
place, but almost altogether on her own energy and perseverance. 

Fanny determined to try Timboo’s plan. She said that she 
would begin that day, and be very careful not to make any noise 
in the house, or to give her mother any trouble in any way ; and 
that she would take a lesson every day in reading and in writing. 

“You must take four lessons every day in reading,” said Tim- 
boo, “and two in writing.” 

“ Well,” said Fanny, “ I will.” 

It was finally agreed that Fanny was to read aloud from some 
story book, a half an hour each time, four times a day, twice in 
the forenoon and twice in the afternoon. This, Timboo told her, 
would give her practice, so that in a short time she would find her- 
self improving very fast. Then she was also to give herself two 



JAMES. 


THE FIRST WRITING-LESSON. 


55 


Fanny wanted to write with ink. What Timboo said. The first lesson. 


lessons in writing every day. She had no pen and ink, and so 
she was going to begin with a pencil. Timboo told her that she 
conld learn the forms of the letters just as well with a pencil as 
with a pen. 

“ Only the -writing will rub out,” said Fanny, “if I do it with 
a pencil ; and I want to write in a magazine-book like yours, and 
keep it as long as I live.” 

“Well,” said Timboo, “I will give you a piece of paper, and 
write you something to copy, and you shall write it at first four 
or five times with a pencil, and then, as soon as you can write it 
well enough to be read, I will make you a magazine-book, and you 
shall copy it there.” 

“ And can I have a picture too ?” asked Fanny. 

“ Yes,” said Timboo. “ If you will bring me some picture or 
other, I will write something about it for you to copy, and that 
shall be your first lesson.” 

“ Well,” said Fanny, “ I will.” 


CHAPTER X. 

THE FIRST WRITING-LESSON. 

Fanny wished to have her first writing-lesson in poetry. A 
great many of the articles in Timboo’s magazine-book were in po- 
etry, or, rather, in what the children called poetry, though the 
pieces consisted only of little stanzas of jingling rhymes, wdiicli, 
though of no great pretensions in a literary point of view, amused 
the children very much, and this was the reason that Timboo wrote 


56 


THE FIRST WRITING-LESSON. 


Fanny chooses a picture to write about. 


them. Indeed* it was owing to the fact that Prudence knew how 
skillful Timboo was in composing such verses, that she had sen- 
tenced him to make a poetical confession of his offense in mysti- 
fying Mark with his story of the robbery. 

Fanny accordingly chose a picture from among a considerable 
stock which she had in a small portfolio, and brought it out to 
Timboo in the garden, to ask him to write something adapted to it. 

“Timboo,” said she, “I have brought you my picture.” 

“Very well,” said Timboo. “I am busy now, and can not 
come down very well, but you can tell me about the picture, and 
that will answer.” 

Timboo was standing upon a ladder at this time, pruning a 
grape-vine which was growing over a bower. 

So Fanny took her place at the foot of the ladder, and began 
explaining the picture to Timboo. 

“ There is a girl sitting in a chair, out under a tree, not far from 
the house,” said Fanny. “ She has a little child in her lap. She 
is trotting him on her knee, and is singing him a song. I want 
you to write me the song that she is singing.” 

“ Well,” said Timboo, “ I will. But what else is there in the 
picture ?” 

“ There is a bird on a tree,” said Fanny. 

“ And what else is there ?” asked Timboo. 

“There is a kitty,” said Fanny. 

“And what is the kitty doing?” asked Timboo. 

“Nothing,” said Fanny, “except running about.” 

“Well,” said Timboo, “now go and read your first lesson, and 


THE FIRST WRITING-LESSON. 


57 


Negotiations between Timboo and Fanny about a song. 

when you come back I will have the song ready. It will be a 
very short song, because your first writing-lesson must not be a 
long one.” 

“Well,” said Fanny. 

“And it must be such a kind of song as a girl would like to 
sing when trotting a baby, I suppose,” said Timboo. 

“ Yes,” said Fanny. 

“ Can you sing the song,” said Timboo, “if I write it for you ?” 

“ Oh yes,” said Fanny. 

“But there won’t be any tune,” said Timboo. 

“ Couldn’t you make me a tune?” asked Fanny. 

“I might make it, perhaps,” replied Timboo, “but I could not 
write it. I don’t know how to write music.” 

“No matter,” said Fanny; “you can teach me to sing it, and 
that will do just as well.” 

So Fanny went away, and, taking a story-book, she sat down 
on the step of the door, -where the sun shone pleasantly, and spent 
half an hour in reading aloud. When she thought the half hour 
was expired, she went into the garden again. She found that 
Timboo had come down from the ladder and was now in the bow- 
er. He had a piece of paper there and a pencil, and he had been 
writing his song on the paper. He had written it in a very plain 
and distinct hand, in order that Fanny might see the exact forms 
of the letters, and so copy them more readily. 

Fanny had the picture with her, in her hand. Timboo took the 
picture, and placed it at the top of his paper, over the verses, and 
then read as follows : 


58 


THE FIRST WRITING-LESSON. 


Fanny’s picture and Timboo’s trotting- song. 



THE TROTTING SONG. 

I see a robin ; 

His head he keeps a bobbin’ ; 

Up it goes, and down it goes, 

Bob, bob, bobbin’. 

I see a pretty 
Little Malta kitty ; 

Here she jumps, there she jumps, 

Kit, kit, kitty. 

Fanny was very mucli pleased with the Trotting Song, and 
she said she wished she had a baby that very minute, so that 
she might take him up in her arms, and trot him, and sing him 
the song. 


THE FIRST WRITING-LESSON. 


59 


The mouse. The third verse of Timboo's poetry. 

“ But, Timboo,” said she, “ you have not written any thing about 
the mouse.” 

“ The mouse l” repeated Timboo ; “ is there any mouse ?” 

“Yes,” said Fanny ; “ here he is, down in the comer of the pic- 
ture.” 

“ Ah !” said Timboo, “ what a pity ! I did not know there was 
a mouse. There certainly must be something about the mouse. 
Go away and read aloud fifteen minutes more, and I will see if I 
can make out something.” 

So Fanny went away, and sat down on the door-step again, and 
began to read. In about ten minutes she called out, 

“ Timboo, have you done the mouse ?” 

“Not quite,” said Timboo. 

So Fanny waited a little while longer. At length Timboo call- 
ed her to come, and on arriving at the bower she found that he had 
completed the trotting-song by adding the following stanza. 

I see a cunning 
Little mousie running ; 

Here he goes, there he goes, 

Run, run, running. 

So Fanny took the song and walked away with it toward the 
house, in order to see % how she could succeed in copying it by 
means of a pencil and a piece of paper which Timboo had given 
her for the purpose. 


60 


DOLPHIN. 


Timboo’s hogshead. 


Dolphin and Joliba. 


CHAPTER XI. 

DOLPHIN. 

The reader will perhaps recollect, that is, in case he has read 
the story of Timboo and Joliba, that when Timboo first came, to 
live at Mr. Cheveril’s, he slept for a few nights in a hogshead, which 
he turned down upon its side, for the purpose of forming a shelter 
for him through the night. After Timboo had changed his quar- 
ters from this hogshead to a more convenient sleeping-place in Ins 
lodge, Oscar and Carroll had petitioned their father to let them 
have a Newfoundland dog to keep in that hogshead, since it would 
make, as they thought, so excellent a kennel. 

Their father consented to this proposal, and the boys procured 
a young Newfoundland dog from New York. They named the 
dog Dolphin. Dolphin was rather small when the boys first bought 
him, but he soon grew quite large, and he became a great favorite 
with all the family. 

Joliba, Timboo’s parrot, and Dolphin were for a time somewhat 
afraid of each other, but they gradually became acquainted, and at 
length they were excellent friends. Th# boys taught Joliba to 
stand on Dolphin’s head, and to remain there while Dolphin walk- 
ed about the yard. 

Carroll was very proud of Dolphin. He thought he was a very 
“ knowing” dog, as he expressed it. Dolphin was, indeed, a very 
sagacious and intelligent animal. 


DOLPHIN. 


61 


Carroll’s comparison. Timboo’s reply. Ungentlemanliness. 

“ I think my dog is worth a great deal more than your parrot, 
Timboo,” said Carroll, one day, when he had been playing with 
Dolphin. 

“Very likely,” said Timboo. 

“ He knows more, and can do more, and is worth more in every 
respect,” added Carroll. 

“Very probably,” said Timboo, coolly. 

“And I would not swap with you if you were to give me ever 
so much to boot,” added Carroll. 

“Probably not,” said Timboo. “At any rate, there is one 
thing to be said in Dolphin’s praise that can’t always be said of 
an animal.” 

“ What is that?” asked Carroll. 

“Why, that he is more of a gentleman than his master,” said 
Timboo. 

At hearing these words, Carroll looked up at Timboo very much 
astonished, and asked him what he meant by that. 

“ Why,” replied Timboo, “ I never knew Dolphin to say or do 
an ungentlemanly thing in my life, and that is much more than can 
be said of his master.” 

“Oh, Timboo,” said Carroll, “what a fib ! I am sure I am 
always gentlemanly.” 

“It is not considered a particularly gentlemanly thing, I be- 
lieve,” said Timboo, “for a person, when talking with other peo- 
ple, to make comparisons, and boast of the superiority of his things 
over theirs.” 

Carroll was quite confounded at this rebuke, and did not know 


62 


DOLPHIN. 


Fanny playing with Dolphin. Those that talk the most are not always the wisest. 

what to say, and before he had time to think how he should re- 
ply, Timboo was out of hearing. 

Now it happened that, on the day when Fanny took her first 
writing-lesson from Timboo’s hands, Dolphin was coming into the 
garden just as she was going out, and Fanny thought she would 
have a little play with him. So she laid her picture, and the pa- 
per on which Timboo had written the song, down by the side of 
the walk, and seizing Dolphin by the collar, she ran along where- 
ever he led her. He brought her round, after a time, to the place 
where Timboo was at work. Here Dolphin stopped, and sat down 
near the door of the bower to rest. 

“Timboo,” said Fanny, “who do you think does really know 
the most, Dolphin or Joliba ?” 

Fanny had heard the conversation between Timboo and Car- 
roll in respect to Dolphin and Joliba, and the question which of 
the two animals was really possessed of the highest degree of sa- 
gacity had never been decided in her mind. 

“Which do you think knows the most?” asked Timboo. 

“Why Joliba, I suppose,” replied Fanny, “for Joliba can talk 
and Dolphin can not. At least,” added Fanny, after musing a 
moment, “he can only bark, and whine, and do such things as 
that. At any rate, Joliba can talk the most” 

“True,” said Timboo, “but that’s no rule. It is not always 
they who talk the most that know the most. I think that Dol- 
phin has a great many more ideas in his mind than Joliba.” 

“What ideas has he ?” asked Fanny. 

“ Why, for one thing, he has the idea of duty,” said Timboo. 


DOLPHIN. 


63 


Dolphin had an idea of duty. 


Joliba had not. 



“ I can give him something to do, and he will do it faithfully ; hut 
if ever I attempt to give Joliba any duty to perform, I can not, by 
any possible way, get him to understand what I mean.” 

“ See!” added Timboo. 

So saying, he laid his jacket on the ground, and calling Dol- 
phin’s attention to it, he said, “Dolphin! watch!” 

Dolphin immediately rose, and walked along to the place where 
the jacket was lying, and then lay down by the side of it. 

“ There !” said Timboo ; “he would stay there and watch that 
jacket all day, if I were to leave it under his charge so long. He 
thinks it is his duty. But Joliba, though he is a prodigious talk- 
er, has no idea of duty at all. He does just such things as he finds 

it pleasant for him to do. 
He never does any thing 
because it is his duty.” 

What Timboo stated 
was perfectly true, and 
yet Joliba was an amu- 
sing as well as a very 
handsome bird. There 
was a fashionable young 
lady, that came one day 
from Hew York to make 
a visit at Mr. Cheveril’s, 
and the boys carried the 
parrot into the house, in 
his cage, to let her look 


JOLIBA. 


64 


ENCOURAGEMENT. 


Joliba’s songs. 


Fanny’s writing-lesson again. 


at liim. She thought he was a very fine bird, and she was very 
much amused at hearing him tease himself to sing. 

“ Come, Polly,” he would say, in a very entreating tone, “give 
us a song. Pol-ly! Pol-ly! do now, Polly! Come, Polly, give 
us a little song.” 

Then singing, 

“ Love-ly Ro-sa, Sam-bo come, 

Don’t you hear the banjo — ” 

Here he would stop suddenly in his singing, and begin entreat- 
ing himself again. 

“Come, Polly! Pol-ly! Go on, Polly.” 

Then he would break out again into his singing : 

“ Don’t you hear the banjo 1 turn, turn, turn.” 

Joliba made a great deal of amusement for those who saw him 
by these and similar exploits of vocalization, but it was neverthe- 
less true, as Timboo said, that he was wholly incapable of conceiv- 
ing the idea of duty. 


CHAPTER XII. 

ENCOURAGEMENT. 

After Fanny went away from Timboo the second time on the 
morning of the day when he wrote the trotting-song for her, in or- 
der to go to the house and set herself to the work of copying it, 
Timboo saw no more of her during the day. The next morning, 
however, after breakfast, he saw her playing in the yard, and he 
thought he would ask her about her writing. 


ENCOURAGEMENT. 


65 


Fanny is discouraged. Timboo reassures her. 

“ Well, Fanny,” said he, “ how did you get along copying the 
song ?” 

“Oh, I could not do it,” said Fanny. “I could not copy it 
at all.” 

“ Did you try ?” asked Timboo. 

“Yes,” said Fanny, “I tried one line, but I could not make 
any writing.” 

“ And what did you do with the paper you tried upon ?” asked 
Timboo. 

“Why, I threw it away,” said Fanny. 

“I am sorry for that,” said Timboo. “I wanted to see it. 
And did you throw your picture away too ?” 

“ Oh no,” said Fanny, “ I have kept the picture.” 

“ And what did you do with the song I wrote for you ?” asked 
Timboo. 

“ Why, I gave that to Prudence,” replied Fanny. “ She saw 
it and read it, and wanted me to give it to her, and so I did.” 

“ That was right,” said Timboo. 

Fanny had expected that Timboo would have found fault with 
her ; so she was quite pleased to learn that he approved of what 
she had done in the only part of the transaction of which he ex- 
pressed any opinion at all. 

“But I wish,” continued Timboo, “that you could find the pa- 
per that you tried to write on, so as to let me see the marks. I 
don’t expect there is any writing on it, but there may be some 
very good marks.” 

Fanny was quite pleased with the idea that, though she had 
9 E 


66 


ENCOURAGEMENT. 


Fanny carries her work to Timboo. His observations upon it. 

failed in the attempt to write, she might possibly have made some 
good marks, so off she ran to find the paper. 

She had been seated, while she tried to write, the day before, 
on a step at the corner of the piazza, and when she threw her pa- 
per away, it chanced that the wind carried it behind a white rose- 
bush which was growing there near the house ; and now, as soon 
as Fanny went to the place, she found the paper lying there where 
it had fallen. 

She took it up, and began to walk slowly toward Timboo, look- 
ing at the marks, as Timboo called them, which she had made on 
the paper as she went along. 

When she came to Timboo she gave him the paper. Timboo 
took it in his hand, and then stood for a moment looking at it very 
intently, as if he was examining the writing. Fanny stood before 
him in silence, looking up into his face, and awaiting timidly his 
decision. 

“ I never was more mistaken in my life,” said Timboo. 

“ How ?” said Fanny. “ What do you mean ?” 

“ Why, I said that you would not have perseverance enough 
to learn to write, and here you have persevered long enough to 
write a whole line the very first day.” 

Fanny was very much pleased to hear this commendation. 

“ But it is not good writing,” said Fanny. 

Fanny was certainly very right in this opinion. The line was 
nothing but an irregular row of unseemly and unintelligible scrawls 
and characters, which one would scarcely suppose to have been in- 
tended for writing at all. 


ENCOURAGEMENT. 


67 


Fanny writes a second line. Timboo’s opinion. 

“Not good !” said Timboo, in a tone of surprise. “Not good ! 
’Tis true you will learn to write better than that by-and-by, but, 
for a beginning, I call that very good indeed. Look at it.” 

Saying, this, Timboo held up the paper to Fanny so as to dis- 
play the line of writing fully to view. 

“It is very good indeed,” said he. “ Take the paper, and keep 
it carefully, and to-day some time you can write the next line.” 

So saying, Timboo put the paper into Fanny’s hands and walk- 
ed away. 

In about an hour from that time Fanny came back with her 
paper to Timboo, to show him that she had written the second 
line. 

Timboo took the paper and looked at the work. The writing 
of the second line was, like that of the first, wholly illegible. There 
was not a word in it that could be read except the second word, 
which was head / and even that Timboo would not have recog- 
nized if he had not known what the word ought to be. Still, there 
was a manifest improvement. The second attempt which Fanny 
had made, though in one sense not successful, still came nearer to 
success than the first. So Timboo was entirely satisfied. 

“It’s better,” said Timboo, “it’s better. It’s an improvement. 
You are on the right track. Now all you have got to do is to 
push on. How did you hold your pencil ?” 

So Fanny took the pencil between her fingers, and showed Tim- 
boo how she had held it when she was writing. 

Timboo then explained to Fanny how the pencil ought to be 
held. She was naturally inclined to hold it in another way, with 


68 


ENCOUKAGEMENT. 


There is a right way and a wrong way for every thing. 


her fingers all pinched up, hut Timboo told her that was wrong, 
and explained to her what the best way was to hold it. 

“Why?” said Fanny; “what difference does it make if I can 
hold it easier the other way ?” 

“ I’ll explain it to you, perhaps, some time or other,” said Tim- 
boo. “ In the mean time, you must do just as I say.” 

“Well,” said Fanny, “I will.” 

“You see,” said Timboo, “there is a right way and a wrong 
way to do almost every thing. There is a right way and a wrong 
way to drive horses and oxen, and a right way and a wrong way 
to mount a horse, and a right way and a wrong way to hold a 
needle, or a pair of scissors, or a pen. The wrong way of doing 
all these things is sometimes easiest at first, but the right way is 
easiest in the end, that is, after you have become accustomed to 
it. But because the right way is harder at first, some children go 
on forever the wrong way. When you show them the right way, 
they say they can’t do it so — they never could do it that way. So, 
whatever bad habit they have, they do not try to cure themselves 
of it, but keep on doing just the same thing, and when you try to 
persuade them that that is wrong, they say they never could do 
otherwise. And then, if you wish to teach them any thing new, 
they try once to do it, and then they give up, because they can 
not do it well the first time, and say they can’t do that, and so 
won’t try to learn.” 

Fanny listened very attentively to what Timboo said, but she 
did not speak. She was thinking whether or not his remarks 
would apply in any degree to her case. 


ENCOURAGEMENT. 


69 


A common folly. 


Timboo’s conversation with Fanny respecting it. 


“ How perfectly absurd it is,” said Timboo, “to be unwilling 
to try to learn to do a thing because you don’t know how to do it 
already ! Of course, you don’t know how. If you did, there would 
be no use in spending your time in trying to leam it.” 

“I am willing to try,” said Fanny. 

“Yes,” said Timboo, “I see you are. You have written two 
lines already, and you are going to write more, and you are ready 
and willing at once to hold your pen as I tell you, even if it is 
hard to do it at first. You don’t seem to be at all like Tommy.” 

“ Tommy who ?” asked Fanny. 

“ Tommy Booby,” said Timboo. 

“Who was he?” asked Fanny. 

“ Why, he was a boy,” said Timboo, “ about seven years old, 
who went to school. He was very self-conceited, and thought he 
knew a great deal, but was not willing to try to learn any thing 
new, or to attempt to cure himself of his bad habits. Come in 
here, and I will see if I can find an account of him in my maga- 
zine-book.” 

“Have you written an account of him in your magazine-book?” 
asked Fanny. 

“ I’ll see,” said Timboo. 

While this conversation had been taking place, Timboo and 
Fanny had been walking along toward the house together, and 
had now come pretty near the door which led to Timboo’s lodge. 
So they went into the lodge, and Timboo, taking down his mag- 
azine-book, turned over the leaves a little while till he found a 
certain place, and then pretended to read as follows : 


70 


ENCOUKAGEMENT. 


Timboo pretends to read a dialogue out of his book. 


TOMMY. 

Scene , a little school-room . Old dame , in spectacles , sitting in 

a comfortable arm-chair. Children on forms around. En- 
ter a new scholar , a boy seven years old , Azs thumb in his 

mouth. 

Dame. What is your name, my hoy ? 

Boy. Tommy. 

Dame. Tommy what? 

Boy. Tommy Booby. 

Dame. Well, take your thumb out of your mouth. 

\_Tommy takes his thumb out with a very unwilling air. 
The dame takes a slate , and begins to set a copy. Tom- 
my embraces the opportunity to put his thumb in his 
mouth again. 

Dame. I am going to let you learn to write. 

Boy. No, I don’t want to learn to write. I can’t write. I 
never could write. 

Dame. Well, but I want you to learn. Take your thumb out 
of your mouth. 

Boy. No, I can’t write ; I never could do that. 

Dame. Can you read ? 

Boy. Hmm ! 

Dame. Do you know your letters ? 

Boy. Yes, I learned them once when I was a little boy, but I 
have forgotten all about them ; but I don’t want to study them 
any more. 


ENCOUKAGEMENT. 


71 


Dialogue with Tommy. Fanny’s suspicions. Tommy is sullen. 

Dame . Take your thumb out of your mouth, Tommy. 

[ Tommy takes his thumb out and pouts. 

Fanny observed that, in reading or pretending to read this dia- 
logue thus far, Timboo hesitated a little sometimes, and sometimes 
altered the expression, and this awakened a doubt in her mind 
whether he was really reading it or not. So she interrupted him 
at this point to ask the question. 

“Timboo,” said she, “are you really reading that out of your 
magazine-book ?” 

Timboo raised his eyes from the book and looked at Fanny with 
a queer expression in his countenance, but did not answer her 
question. 

“ Timboo,” said Fanny, again, “ is that a real story, or are you 
making it up ?” 

“ It is a real story,” said Timboo. 

“ I verily believe you are making it up,” said Fanny. 

“ Well, listen, and hear the rest of it,” said Timboo. He then 
looked upon his book again, and went on as follows : 

Dame . Tommy, that is a bad habit of yours, keeping your 
thumb in your mouth. It makes you look awkward and disa- 
greeable to others. Should you like to cure yourself of it? I 
will help you, if you wish to try. 

[ Tommy is silent, but looks very unamiable . 

Dame. I wish you were willing to try. You could soon get 
over the habit. 


72 


ENCOURAGEMENT. 


Tommy runs home in the recess. 


Fanny’s opinion of him. 



Boy . No, I can’t do that. I never could keep my thumb out 
of my mouth. 

Dame . Well, go and take your seat, and I will come and give 
you something to do. 

[. Presently she gives Tommy a slate , with o's and s’s on it , 
to copy . He makes one or two, and then, as soon as he 
sees that the dame is occupied with other scholars, he lays 
down his pencil and puts his thumb in his mouth . 

Tommy was glad, as 
soon as the recess came, 
to find himself at liberty, 
and ran off home. The 
other children called out 
to him to tell him that 
school was not done, but 
he paid no heed to them. 
He ran off as fast as he 
could run. 


“What a boy!” ex- 
claimed Fanny, as soon 
as Timboo had finished 

the story and had shown her the picture. 

“Yes,” said Timboo, “I’m thankful that you don’t act as he 
did. When a boy or a girl cling to their faults, and will not try 
to improve, it is almost useless to attempt to do any thing with 
them.” 


RIGHT AND WRONG WAYS. 


73 


Right and wrong ways. 


Mode of sitting or standing to drive a team. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

RIGHT AND WRONG WAYS. 

What Timboo said of the right way and the wrong way of do- 
ing things was very true. There is almost always a right way 
and a wrong way, and the difference between them seems some- 
times very small, and yet, in practice, it is very important. 

Indeed, very often a person would not suppose that there could 
be any difference between two certain modes of doing a thing, when 
yet, in fact, it is found that the difference is very material. The 
advantages of one mode and the disadvantages of the other are not 
perceived except by experience. 

For example, one would not think it would be at all material 
on which side a person should sit, on the forward seat of a carriage, 
when driving ; but it is found in experience that it is much bet- 
ter to sit on the right side. The reason is, that then the right 
arm, which is the arm that holds the whip, is at liberty to extend 
itself without interfering with the other person sitting on the seat ; 
whereas, if, when you are driving, you sit on the left - hand side, 
then, whenever you raise the whip, your arm passes across before 
the face of your companion, and the motion of your shoulder jos- 
tles him. If you sit on the right side, all comes right. 

On the other hand, in driving a team of horses or cattle in the 
field, the proper place for the teamster to take is on the left side. 
Over the leaf is a picture of a man driving awkwardly and wrong, 


74 


RIGHT AND WRONG WAYS 


The wrong way of driving 


The wrong way of sowing. 





THE WRONG SIDE 


EIGHT AND WRONG WAYS. 


75 


Account of Mr. Cheveril’s neighbor, and his plowing. 


because he is on the wrong side of the horses. It represents a 
scene which Timboo witnessed one morning on the bank of the 
river, a little below the house where Mr. Cheveril lived. It was 
in a smooth and pretty field, which had recently been bought by a 
man who lived in the city, and who knew very little about farm- 
ing, but, being somewhat conceited, he thought he knew a great 
deal. He took his carriage-horses out one morning to plow his 
field, having hired a laborer who lived near to hold the plow for 
him. You see him in the picture, standing on the wrong side of 
his team, and driving them awkwardly, holding his whip in both 
hands. 

He should be round on the other side of the horses, and then 
his whip-hand, which is the right hand, and the one which he needs 
to use most in managing his team, would be toward them. As it 
is, his right hand is off from them, and he can not do any thing 
to advantage. 

The field is a very smooth and pretty piece of ground. It is 
shaded on the north by a grove of trees. Near the grove is a man 
sowing grain in a part of the field that was plowed and harrow- 
ed the day before. This man is working awkwardly too, for he 
is sowing with his left hand. Perhaps, however, he is left-handed. 

In the distance we have a very pretty view of the river. 

In respect to mounting a horse when you are going to take a 
ride, the proper side is the left side, because in that case you put 
your left foot in the stirrup, and then the right limb is the one 
that you spring with from the ground, and that you throw over 
the horse’s back in getting into the saddle. Now the right limb, 


76 


EIGHT AND WRONG WAYS, 


The wrong way of mounting a horse. 



THE TUMBLE. 


RIGHT AND WRONG WAYS. 


77 


The proper way of mounting a horse. 


Learn to do things the right way. 


being the strongest, it is easier to spring from it than from the left 
limb ; and it is also easier to throw it over the horse’s back, than 
it would be to throw the left limb over. 

In fact, an awkward man, who does not desire to learn to do 
things in the right way, that is, in the way that experience has 
proved to be the most convenient way, will sometimes come up to 
his horse on the right side, and so put his right foot into the stir- 
rup, and then, in attempting to spring into the saddle from his left 
foot, he has not quite strength to accomplish the feat, and falls back 
again. Sometimes the horse starts when he is half mounted, and 
the man falls to the ground. 

In this engraving you see a representation of such a catastrophe. 
The man not only attempted to mount his horse in the wrong way, 
but he attempted it, too, in the wrong place. A careful man nev- 
er attempts to mount a horse near a high bank, or a precipice, or 
a quagmire, knowing that if the horse should start, and he be 
thrown, the case would be very bad with him in the vicinity of 
such places. ' This man awkwardly and inconsiderately attempted 
to mount his horse in the wrong way and in the wrong place, and 
here you see the consequences. 

It is always best to learn to do every thing in the right way, 
even if it should occasion you some trouble at the outset. And 
there is nothing to which this rule applies more certainly than to 
the manner of holding the pen in learning to write. 

Many children will not take pains to hold their pens in an easy 
and graceful manner when they begin, and so acquire a cramped 
and clumsy habit, which clings to them all their lives. 


78 


NEW LESSON. 


Fanny’s first attempt is not very successful. 


CHAPTER XIY. 

NEW LESSON. 

In about a week, by writing half an hour every forenoon and 
half an hour every afternoon, and sometimes more, Fanny went 
through with the Trotting Song, and copied it all. In one of the 
lines of the second verse, and in two or three of the third, there 
were a few words which might be made out in respect to their 
meaning ; but, excepting these, the whole writing consisted of per- 
fectly unintelligible and illegible* hieroglyphics. Nevertheless, 
Timboo seemed so well satisfied with the work that Fanny felt 
quite encouraged to proceed. 

“Let me see,” said Timboo, looking over the writing. “I am 
going to count up, and ascertain how many good letters you have 
made.” 

So he began to count all the letters which were so far correct 
in form as to be recognizable, and he found that, although there 
were very few whole words that were written plainly, there were 
a great many separate letters that were right. Timboo counted 
these up, and found there were seventeen. 

“You are improving fast,” said he. 

“And I can read better too,” said Fanny. “I read aloud to 
myself half an hour every day.” 

* Illegible means that which can not be read ; unintelligible, that which can not be 
understood. 


NEW LESSON. 


79 


Timboo proposes that Fanny should read to her mother. 

“ And do you find that you can read faster and easier than you 
could when you began?” asked Timboo. 

“Yes,” said Fanny, “a great deal.” 

“ Then,” said Timboo, “ I advise you, some day when your 
mother is not busy, to go with your book, and let her hear you 
read. She will be glad to find that you are improving.” 

“Yes,” said Fanny, “I will.” 

“But do not show her your writing yet,” added Timboo. 
“Wait until you can write plainer. The next lesson that you 
write will be a great deal plainer.” 

“Well,” said Fanny, “ I will. Only, Timboo, I want you to 
let me have the next lesson an easier one.” 

“How shall it be easier?” asked Timboo. 

“Why, this first lesson,” replied Fanny, “was a very small 
picture and a great long writing. I want the next one to be a 
large picture and a little short writing.” 

“Well,” said Timboo, “that will be a very good plan; but 
then, if the writing is going to be short, you must make it up your- 
self. I’ll give you a large picture, but you must make up the po- 
etry for it yourself.” 

“ Oh no,” said Fanny. “ I could not make up poetry.” 

“ Then Mark must do it,” said Timboo. 

The reason why Timboo suggested that Mark should write the 
poetry was, that just at this time he happened to see him playing 
in the garden, at a short distance from the place where he and 
Fanny were standing. So Timboo called out to him. 

“Mark!” said he. 


80 


NEW LESSON. 


Timboo proposes that Mark should write some poetry. 

“ Ay ! ay !” said Mark. “ I hear.” 

“ Could you write a little poetry for Fanny, about a picture, for 
her to copy in her magazine-book ?” 

“Yes,” said Mark. “I’ll do it for her.” So he dropped his 
playthings, and came running to the place where Timboo and Fan- 
ny were standing. 

It is a remarkable circumstance, that if you ever propose to a 
girl to do any thing which seems at all difficult, or which she has 
not been accustomed to do, she almost always says that she can’t 
do it, and is very unwilling to try, however easy it may really be ; 
whereas, if you ask a boy, he always thinks he can do it, and is 
very eager to try, however difficult it may be. 

Timboo told Fanny that she might go with Mark into the lodge 
and get a picture. 

“In my lodge,” said he, “you will find a table; in the table 
you will find a drawer ; in the drawer you will find a portfolio ; in 
the portfolio you will find a pocket ; in the pocket you will find a 
number of pictures. Look them over, and choose the largest and 
best. Then, Mark, you must make some poetry about it — only a 
few lines — and write it off plainly with a pencil for Fanny to copy. 
You will find a pencil and some paper in the drawer.” 

So Mark and Fanny went off to the lodge with a view of find- 
ing a picture. As they passed along toward the table, they stop- 
ped, as usual, to look at the pictures which were hanging against 
the wall, in order to see if there were any new ones. 

Timboo had a great many pictures, which he kept in various 
drawers and boxes, and he was continually bringing out new ones 


NEW LESSON. 


81 


Plan for having a variety of pictures in the same frames. 

to hang upon his walls, so as to make a variety. Accordingly, 
whenever the children went into his room, they always looked upon 
the wall to see if there were any new pictures there. 

This, I think, was a very excellent plan. Indeed, I have some- 
times known grown persons to adopt it with excellent effect, es- 
pecially in small rooms, and in chambers occupied by children. 
These persons have several engravings or colored lithographs of 
the same size, so as to lit the same frames, and then, when one set 
of pictures has been hung up so long that the children have become 
familiar with them, they take them down and put new pictures in 
their places. In such cases they sometimes keep the old pictures 
still in the frames, only placing them behind the new ones, and 
then, when the children have had time to become familiar with the 
new ones and forget the old ones, they change them back again. 

It was somewhat on this principle that Timboo acted in contin- 
ually renewing the pictures in his lodge, and Mark and Fanny al- 
ways liked to go in and see the new ones. 

On this occasion they found two which they had not seen be- 
fore. They were both pictures of girls going away to school. Each 
was surrounded with a very pretty frame, which served for a bor- 
der, and they were hung near together, so as to be companions to 
each other. This was very proper, since the two pictures, both in 
respect to the subject of them and the style in which they were 
respectively executed, were very similar to each other. They were 
hung, too, at just the right height to enable Mark and Fanny to 
see them to advantage. Turn over the leaf, and you will see the 
first one. 


F 


82 


NEW LESSON 


Waiting for the stage. 







NEW LESSON. 


83 


Description of the picture. Riding with the driver. 

It represented a girl who was going away to school in a stage- 
coach. Her father was going with her. Her trunk, and band-box, 
and bag had been brought out and put under a tree by the road- 
side, and she was sitting on the trunk waiting for the stage to 
come. Her father was going away for a moment, saying to her 
as he went that she might remain there upon the trunk until he 
came back, and if the coach should come in the mean time, she 
might let the driver put the baggage on. 

“ That’s a pleasant place to wait for the stage,” said Fanny. 

“ Yes,” replied Mark ; “ and it is a good flat trunk to sit upon.” 

The young lady had her parasol in her hand, and she looked as 
if she did not like very well to have her father go away. 

“ I should like to take a ride in a stage,” said Mark. 

“ So should I,” said Fanny. 

“Especially if they would let me ride outside with the driver,” 
said Mark. 

“Oh no,” said Fanny, “that w*ould be too high.” 

“Not a bit,” replied Mark. “ There is no danger.” 

“ / think there is a great deal of danger,” said Fanny, “ in rid- 
ing so high.” 

“ No,” said Mark, “ there is no danger at all. There is a good 
seat to sit upon, and an iron to hold on by.” 

“But suppose you should upset?” suggested Fanny. 

“ That would do no harm,” said Mark. “ I should be all ready, 
and as soon as we came to the ground, I should look out for a 
good smooth grassy place, and scramble off as fast as possible.” 

“ Oh, Mark,” said Fanny, “you could not do any such thing.” 


84 


NEW LESSON. 


F anny prefers the carriage. 


Noise in the hen-house. 


Fanny’s attention was now, however, attracted to the second 
picture, which you see represented on the opposite page. 

Here the young lady, instead of being represented as waiting by 
the road-side, was seated in a handsome carriage. A well-dressed 
and very genteel-looking boy was standing by the side of the car- 
riage, taking leave of her. He appeared to be also about to spread 
a shawl over her, as if the morning were cool. The trunk was 
on in front, by the side of the coachman. There was also a car- 
pet bag. The coachman seemed all ready to set out, and was ap- 
parently only waiting for the young lady to give the command to 
drive on. 

“Ah!” said Fanny, “this is the prettiest picture. I would 
much rather go to school in such a carriage as this than in the 
stage.” f 

“Oh no,” said Mark, “it is a great deal better to go in the 
stage, because they have four horses.” 

“No,” said Fanny, “ I would rather go in a carriage. I should 
like very much to take a ride to school in such a carriage as this, 
that is, if I could come home again the next day.” 

“ Ho ! ho ! ” said Mark, “how foolish that would be ! But come, 
let us go and look at the pictures in the drawer.” 

At this moment, however, the attention of both Mark and Fanny 
was diverted from the subject of pictures altogether by hearing the 
sound of a loud cackling and crowing in the hen-house. It hap- 
pened that the hen-house was in a shed, and that it adjoined Tim- 
boo’s lodging-room, so that whatever sounds were made there 
could be heard very distinctly through the partition. 


NEW LESSON 


85 


Another picture of waiting for the stage. 




86 


NEW LESSON. 


The children make a visit to the hen house. 


“Ah!” said Mark, “there’s Old Rickatoo crowing, and there’s 
a hen cackling besides. Let ns go and see if there are any eggs.” 

“Well,” said Fanny, “so we will.” 

So the children went off into the hen-house. They found two 
eggs in two different nests, besides the chalk eggs which were left 
there all the time. They took the two eggs, and carried them into 
the house to give them to Prudence. 

“ Did you know,” said Mark, “ that Timboo has written a story 
about Rickatoo in his magazine-book ?” 

“ No,” said Fanny. 

“ He has,” said Mark, “ and it is an excellent good story too. 
You had better ask him to read it to you some day.” 

“ I will,” said Fanny. 

When Mark and Fanny got into the house, they found Prudence 
frying some fritters for dinner. It seems there was some company 
expected at dinner that day. Mark and Fanny asked Prudence to 
give them some of the fritters, and she said she would give them 
one apiece. So they took the fritters in a plate, and went out 
upon the piazza to eat them. They thought no more about the 
picture they were to choose, or of the poetry that Mark was to 
write about it, until the middle of the afternoon. 

The next chapter contains the account of Rickatoo, the rooster, 
that Mark referred to as having been written by Timboo in his 
magazine-book. 


OLD RICKATOO. 


87 


Story of Rickatoo. 


His waking up in the morning. 


CHAPTER XY. 

OLD RICKATOO. 

One morning Oscar’s rooster, whose name was Old Rickatoo, 
found himself gradually coming to his senses, though at first he 
could not tell where he was. 

He opened one eye drowsily. 

“ Where am I ?” said he. 

It was quite dark all around him. He turned his head a little, 
and saw a faint gleam of gray light coming in through a cranny. 

“Ah ! yes,” said he ; “ this is my coop, and I am on the high- 
est perch in it.” 

Then, finding himself waking up more and more, he opened the 
other eye. It was a little lighter on that side, and he saw four of 
his hens perched by the side of him, all along in a row. There 
were three on the other side of him, and three more on another 
perch a little lower. 

Old Rickatoo looked about a minute or two longer, watching the 
light, and then, feeling satisfied that the day w r as breaking, he 
stretched his neck and shook his feathers, and then, spreading out 
his wings and raising himself up on tiptoe, he gave a very loud 
and rousing crow. 

The ten hens all immediately woke up and opened their eyes. 

Rickatoo waited quietly nearly five minutes, to allow his hens 
time to recover their senses, and to find out where they were, and 


88 


OLD KICKATOO. 


Different ways in which, different animals sleep. 


then he crowed again. The hens then began to move about a lit- 
tle and stretch their necks, and to shake and smooth down their 
feathers. They knew that it was morning, and that it was time 
for them to get down. 

Children get up in the morning, but hens get down , for they 
sleep on perches high in the air.* 


* The reason why hens sleep on perches is this : In their natural state they live 
in the woods, and there are a great many wild animals, such as wild-cats, minks, rac- 
coons, and foxes, that are always prowling about in the grass and under the bushes 

in the night, and if the hens 
were to sleep in nests, in 
such places, they would all 
be caught and devoured, and 
the race^would be extinct. 
Here is a picture of a wild- 
cat that has caught a hare. 
Hens would be caught too, 
in the same way, if they 
were within their reach. In 
order to save them from this 
danger, they are formed in 
such a manner as to enable 
the wild-cat. them to sleep on the limbs 

and branches of the trees. They are provided with strong claws, which clasp the 
branch that they stand upon, and hold them there firmly all night, even while they 
are asleep. Being thus provided with these peculiar claws, and with the instinct of 
perching for their protection, in the wild state, they retain the propensity when do- 
mesticated by man, although there is no longer any necessity for it. When they have 
a good, secure, and spacious house to, live in, like the one which Timboo had made 
for Rickatoo and his family, they might just as well go to bed in their nests and sleep 
quietly, with their legs drawn up under their feathers. But they never do sleep in 
their nests unless they have eggs to hatch or chickens to take care of. 


V 'As-"- ,! ' ' 

u . it. - - _ • 



OLD KICKATOO. 


89 


Pattry and Flippe. Singular modes of sleeping. 


Story of the doctor. 


At the very end of the lowermost perch in Rickatoo’s house 
was a feeble hen named Pattry. The hen next her was large and 
strong. Her name was Flippe. Flippe, seeing poor Pattry perch- 
ed near, stepped sideways toward her and pecked at her. Pattry 
moved meekly farther along upon the perch, so as to be out of the 
way. 

Flippe, in the mean and ungenerous disposition which she thus 
evinced to tyrannize over and torment the unfortunate, manifest- 
ed a very different spirit from Dolphin, Carroll’s Newfoundland 
dog. Dolphin one day, in walking in the road near the house, 
found a poor, sick little pug crawling along helplessly under the 



Some animals sleep at night in still more 
extraordinary positions than that of the hens. 
Here is a representation of the manner in 
which the bat sleeps, hanging by his claws 
to the bark of a tree. The house-fly, too, 
sleeps clinging to the ceiling of the room 
overhead, in a position which we should con- 
sider upside down, though I have no doubt it 
is easy and natural enough to him. To us, 
however, it seems wonderful that he does not 
let go his hold in his sleep, and fall down to 
the floor. 

I have heard of soldiers who, when wearied 
with long marches, could sleep on horseback. 
And once a story was told me of a physician, 
who, after being out very late one night, 
came to his senses suddenly toward morning, 
and found himself waking up out of sleep on 
his horse in the barn ! 


BAT ASLEEP. 


90 


OLD RICKATOO. 


Old Rickatoo flies down from his perch. 

bushes, shivering and cold. As soon as he saw him he had pity 
on him, and he took him up by the neck gently, as a cat would a 
kitten. He put him down on some straw in a warm corner by 
the shed, and then went away and found him a bone. In a few 
days Pug got well. 

When Old Rickatoo found that his hens were awake, he spread 
his wings, sprang from his perch, and flew down to the ground. 
The hens then began to fly down also, two or three at a time. 
They made a great fluttering in doing this, and the wind of their 
wings made the dust, and straw, and feathers fly that lay upon the 
floor. 

For a moment two or three sleepy hens were left upon the 
perch, but they, finding that all the rest were going, concluded to 
rouse themselves and go too. 

There was an old mother hen sitting upon her nest in a box in 
a corner, with ten chickens under her wings. She clucked to her 
chickens to tell them to lie still. It was too early for them to 
leave their nest. One little chicken, more curious or more dis- 
obedient than the rest, crept out a little way to see, but her moth- 
er called her to come back immediately, and she came/ 

Old Rickatoo walked out through a little door which Timboo 
had left open for him into the open air. He stepped in a proud 
and stately manner, and yet he walked circumspectly, and looked 
around him on every side, to see that there was no danger near. 
He wished to be sure that the minks, and foxes, and other wild 
beasts of the night had all gone away, otherwise he feared that 
they might catch some of his hens. 


OLD RICKATOO. 


91 


Picture of him. 


lie is convinced that it is morning. 



K1CKATOU. 


Besides, he was not quite sure that it was morning. 

He saw a large round moon in the sky, low down in the west, 
and one star not very far from it. 

“ Perhaps it is not morning,” said he to himself. “I will fly 
up upon this fence and see.” 

So he flew up upon the fence and looked around. There was a 
broad stripe of rosy-colored light extending itself across the whole 
eastern sky. 

“All right,” said lie. 

He then clapped his wings and gave a long and loud crow. 

He looked down upon his hens, who were walking along the 


92 


JACKET JOHN. 


Rickatoo wakes Prudence up. 


Fanny concludes to go and read to her mother. 


path below him, and thought it was too early yet for them to find 
much food by scratching for it on the ground. 

“ I will wake Prudence up,” said he, “ and Timboo ; and when 
they come to open the back doors, they will throw us out some 
crumbs.” 

So he crowed again as loud as he could, and then again, and 
then once more. 

Prudence heard the sound, opened her eyes, looked toward the 
window, and, seeing the broad rosy light in the eastern sky, she 
said, “It is morning. I must get up.” 


CHAPTER XYI. 

JACKET JOHN. 

After a time, when the children had finished their fritters, 
Fanny said that she was going into the house to read to her 
mother. 

“ Oh no,” said Mark. “ Stay here and play with me.” 

“I’ll come back presently,” said Fanny, “but I must go now 
and read to my mother. I want her to see how fast I am making 
improvement.” 

Fanny, however, said that she would come back soon, and Mark 
promised that he would wait for her in the garden. So she went 
in. She found her mother in her chamber, dressing for the din- 
ner-party. 

“I shall be ready pretty soon,” said her mother, “and then I 
shall be very glad to hear you read.” 


JACKET JOHN. 


93 


Fanny reads to her mother. 


Her mother’s surprise. 



Accordingly, in a few min- 
utes Mrs. Cheveril was ready, 
and taking her seat in a chair, 
she called Fanny to her side, 
that she might hear her read. 
Mrs. Cheveril was quite sur- 
prised to find how much Fan- 
ny had improved. 

44 I am reading to mysel 
every day — twice every day, 
and I am improving very fast,” 
said Fanny. 

“I am very glad to hear 
that,” said Mrs. Cheveril. 

44 And I am learning to write 
too,” said Fanny. 44 But I’m not going to show you any of my 
writing until I can write a little better. Timboo says I had bet- 
ter not.” 

44 Then your reading and writing in this way is one of Timboo’s 
plans ?” said Mrs. Cheveril. 

44 Yes, mother,” said Fanny. 

44 I’m sure I’m very much obliged to Timboo,” said Mrs. Chev- 
eril. 44 It will be an excellent thing for you to improve in read- 
ing, and to get a little start in writing too, before you go to 
school.” 

Fanny had a great mind to tell her mother that her design in 
taking so much pains to learn to read and write at home was to 


94 


JACKET JOHN. 


Fanny and Mark go into the lodge to find a picture. 

avoid the necessity of going to school at all, but she finally con- 
cluded not to mention this plan at present. 

Besides, she was prevented from conversing with her mother any 
longer at this time by hearing Mark’s voice calling to her from 
the foot of the stairs. On going to the stairs, Fanny found that 
Mark wanted her to go out to Timboo’s lodge and choose the 
picture. 

“We came very near forgetting all about it,” said Mark. 

“Yes,” said Fanny, “so we did. I will come this very min- 
ute.” 

So Fanny went back and told her mother that she was going 
with Mark out into the lodge. She explained to her mother that 
Mark was going to compose some poetry for her to copy, and that 
they were going to look for a picture for the subject of it. 

“ Yery well,” said her mother. In fact, Mrs. Cheveril was glad 
to have Mark and Fanny go, for it was now drawing near the hour 
for her company to come. The children were not to dine with the 
company that day, but were to have their dinner afterward, under 
Prudence’s care. 

So Mark and Fanny went out into the lodge, and, after placing 
two seats at the table, they opened the drawer and took out the 
portfolio ; and then, opening the portfolio, they took the pictures 
out of the pocket of it, and began to look them over. It was some 
time before Fanny could make a choice. She rejected one because 
it was too small, and another because it was not the right shape, 
and others for different reasons still. 

For example, there was one which represented a man and two 


JACKET JOHN. 


95 


Picture of soldiers coming. Fanny rejects it. Her reasons. 

children looking at 
a troop of soldiers 
marching in a val- 
ley. The man, as 
you see, stands in 
the foreground, in 
the road, with his 
back to the specta- 
tor. A boy is seen 
standing on a bank 
near him, pointing 
toward the troops, 
and a girl behind 

THE SOLDIERS. the ] 3an l tj with the 

branch of a tree in her hands. 

“ That’s a pretty picture,” said Mark. “I can make up some 
poetry about that. I can begin, Hub dub a dub ; and then I can 
say something about a club or a hubbub.” 

“No,” said Fanny, “I don’t think that would be pretty; and 
besides, I can’t see the soldiers plain enough in this picture.” 

“Yes,” said Mark, “we can see them very plain. I can see 
six men marching together in front, with their guns by their sides. 
They are carrying arms. 

“Carry — arms!” he added, speaking in a military style. 

“ Then I can see a man on horseback on one side,” said Mark. 
“I expect he is the general. In the middle of the soldiers is the 
banner. I see it waving in the air.” 



96 


JACKET JOHN. 


Another picture examined and rejected. 



“Yes,” said Fanny; “but I don’t like that picture very well. 
Besides, it is not a pretty house. The chimney is leaning all over 
to one side.” 

In saying this, Fanny was looking at the building which we see 
in the distance, behind the boy. 

“ That is not a house !” said Mark ; “that is a wind-mill: what 
you call a chimney is one of the sails.” 

Fanny saw that the building was a wind-mill, and thus that 
one of her objections to it was removed ; but still, she thought she 
would not choose it, and so they passed on. 

There was another picture which represented a boy putting a 

jug of water upon a 
girl’s head. 

“ What is he do- 
ing it for?” inquir- 
ed Fanny. 

“Why, so as to 
enable her to carry 
it home,” answered 
Mark. “ In some 
countries, it is cus- 
tomary for the peo- 
ple to carry things 
on their heads, and 
they are taught to 

do it when they are little children. 

“I suppose,” continued Mark, “that there must be a spring 


JACKET JOHN. 


97 


Fanny makes many objections to this picture. 

there under the bushes, and that that girl came out to get some 
water, and now the boy is helping her to put the jug on her head.” 

“ It will fall, I am sure,” said Fanny. 

“ Oh no,” said Mark ; “ she will carry it along as steady as if 
it was on a table. We might have this for the picture,” he con- 
tinued. “ I think I could make some poetry about it. What is 
there to rhyme with jug ?” 

“Pitcher?” suggested Fanny, timidly. 

“ Oh no,” said Mark ; “I mean to rhyme with it. There’s plug, 
and jug.” 

“No,” said Fanny, “I don’t want any thing about plugs and 
jugs ; and I am sure, too, that the jug will fall. Besides,” she 
added, “the girl has not got a pretty bonnet.” 

Thus, the more Fanny considered the case, the more she was de- 
cided not to have this picture. 

So they went on looking at more pictures, but it was some time 
before they could be suited. Fanny seemed to be very particular 
in her choice. 

At length, however, she found one which seemed to please her 
very much. It represented a farmer prying out a stone. Near 
him was a boy with a large jacket on, watching the operation. 
There was another boy, too, looking through a fence. This boy 
was barefooted. 

Fanny said that she should like this picture, if Mark could write 
some poetry about it. So Mark set himself at work, and in a 
short time produced two stanzas, which he wrote on a paper to be 
placed under the picture, as follows : 

9 G 


98 


THE TRIPLICHORD. 


Mark’s poetry. Some account of the triplichord. 


JACKET JOHN. 

Jacket John 
Is looking on, 

To see his father hoist a stone ; 

Barefoot Joe 
Is peeping through, 

Wondering what they’re going to do. 

Fanny was extremely pleased with the poetry, and as Mark 
wrote it for her in a very plain and distinct hand, it made an ex- 
cellent writing-lesson for her. 


CHAPTER XVII. 

THE TRIPLICHORD. 

Timboo invented a musical instrument which he called a tripli- 
chord. Mark, however, and Fanny, finding the word triplichord 
rather hard to pronounce, commonly called it a banjo. 

The triplichord, as its name imports, consisted of three strings 
stretched up and down upon the wall of the room. The way in 
which it happened that Timboo invented the instrument was this : 

One day Mark was in the lodge with Timboo, when it happened 
that a string was wanted for some purpose or other, and Mark, 
feeling in his pocket for one, drew out a piece of an old base-viol 
string which he had found in a drawer in the house, and which 
his mother had given him. 

“Here is a string,” said Mark, showing it to Timboo; “but 
then, I suppose, it is. not good for any thing, it is so stiff.” 


THE TRIPLICHORD. 


99 


Timboo examines the string. He thinks there is some music in it yet. 

Timboo took the string, and examined it with a great deal of 
interest. 

“ It is a music string,” said he. 

“Yes,” said Mark. “It used to be on my father’s base-viol, 
but it got too short.” 

“Yes,” said Timboo, “I see. There has been a great deal of 
music got out of that string, I warrant, in days gone by, and I 
believe there is some left in it yet.” 

Mark appeared much pleased at the discovery of a latent value 
in his string. 

Timboo immediately began to make a loop in one end of the 
string, by doubling it over upon itself, and tying a knot. He then 
took a hammer and a nail out of a drawer where he kept such 
things, and passing the point of the nail through the loop, he drove 
the nail into one of the boards which formed the wall of the room, 
not far from his table. Then, for the other end of the string, he 
took out from the drawer a small screw, with an eye on the end 
of it. This screw was of the kind commonly used for fastening 
down stair-carpets, the eye being intended to receive the end of the 
carpet-rod, and to hold it in its place in the angle of the stair. 
Timboo, having already secured one end of the string to its place 
by means of the nail, now passed the other end through the eye 
of the screw, and tied it. He next stretched the string down the 
wall, in order to measure the space, and then, with a small brad- 
awl, he made a hole in the board where the end of it came. He 
screwed the screw into this hole by means of a pair of nippers. 
As the screw went in, the end of the string was wound round and 

.9 KfiU ■ 

,Y- ». 

■s » 


100 


THE TRIPLICHOKH. 


Timboo attaches the string to the wall and tunes it. 


round upon the shank of it, and thus the string itself was drawn 
very tense. 

“ There !” said Timboo ; “ now, by giving the screw a little turn, 
I can tune up the string just as I please. But first I must have 
some bridges.” 

So Timboo, with his knife, cut out two little bars of wood, and 
these he slipped under the two ends of the string, putting one of 
them near the upper end of the string, by the nail, and another 
near the lower end, by the screw. These bars served to support 
the string from contact with the board beneath it, and to furnish, 
what is always necessary in such cases, distinct and well-defined 
limits to the range of vibration. 

Having placed the bridges in their position, Timboo began to 
sound the string with his finger, making, at the same time, him- 
self a humming sound in unison with the tone of it. 

“ Turn, turn, turn,” said the string. 

“Hm — hm— hm,” sang Timboo. 

“ Yes,” he added, “there’s a great deal of music in this string 
yet, I see plainly.” 

Then, taking the pitch thus from the string, he began to sing 
Joliba’s song, touching the string now and then, whenever he came 
to any note that would harmonize with it, thus : 

“ Love-ly Bo-sa, Sam-bo come ; don’t you hear the banjo ? 
turn, turn, turn.” 

Mark threw back his head, and laughed loud and long With de- 
light. 

J oliba’s song was, in truth, a very suitable one to be sung with 


THE TRIPLICHORD. 


101 


Timboo sings the Invitation Song, and plays the accompaniment. 

such an accompaniment, for the music of it was simple enough to 
comport exceedingly well with the humble character of the instru- 
ment. 

“ Sing it again,” said Mark, when Timboo stopped. 

So Timboo sang it again. 

Mark then ran off to get Fanny, and when he returned with her, 
Timboo sang the song again to both, and the performance elicited 
great applause. 

“ Now sing us something else,” said Mark. 

“ Sing us the Invitation Song,” said Fanny. 

The Invitation Song was a song which Fanny had learned from 
a book called “Wallace,” one of the Franconia Stories. It was 
as follows : 

“THE INVITATION SONG. 

“ Come and see me, Mary Ann, 

This afternoon at three ; 

Come as early as you can, 

And stay till after tea. 

“ We’ll jump the rope, we’ll dress the doll, 

We’ll feed my sister’s birds, 

And read my little story-books, 

All full of easy words. 

“ So come and see me, Mary Ann, 

This afternoon at three ; 

Come as early as you can, 

And stay till after tead’ 

Timboo was joined by both Mark and Fanny in singing the In- 
vitation Song, they having both learned it by hearing their mothei 


102 


THE TRIPLICHORD. 


Mark wishes to have a picture placed over it. 

play it upon the piano, from the notes of it which were given in 
the hook. The sound of the string which Timboo touched at 
every note of the tune with which it would harmonize had a very 
pretty effect, and the children were very much pleased. 

“It is a very good banjo,” said Mark. “And now, Timboo, 
put a picture up over it for an ornament.” 

“ What sort of a picture ?” asked Timboo. 

“Oh, some sort of a musical picture,” replied Mark. “You 
can find one, I’ve no doubt, in your drawer.” 

Timboo opened his drawer and began to look. Mark and Fan- 
ny looked with him. They found several pictures which related 
more or less directly to the subject of music, but none of them 
seemed entirely suitable. At last they found one which both Mark 
and Fanny said would be exactly the thing. You see a represent- 
ation of it on the opposite page. 

It represented a girl at school sitting on a bed, and playing a 
violin for her schoolmates to dance by. The teacher was just 
coming in at the door. 

“ She will give the girl a good scolding, in my opinion,” said 
Fanny. 

“ Oh no,” said Mark ; “ they are only having a little fun. The 
teacher won’t care.” 

“Well,” said Fanny, “if you think the teacher won’t care, 
then we will have this picture.” 

So Timboo put a frame around this picture, and hung it up over 
the musical string. 

A few days after this, Mark found another string that was small- 


THE TKIPLICHORD 


103 





I 



104 


fanny’s improvement. 


Two more strings. 


The name. 


Fanny’s progress in learning. 


er and more slender than the first one, and Timboo put the new 
one up by the side of the other, and tuned it a third higher. Tim- 
boo also made a string of silk, which he twisted for the purpose, 
and this he tuned a fifth above the first one. Thus he had a key 
note, and also its third and fifth, and with these three notes he 
found that he could play a very good accompaniment to almost 
any tune. 

With these three strings the instrument was complete, and then 
it was that Timboo gave it the name Triplichord. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 
fanny’s improvement. 

In the course of a fortnight, Fanny, by practicing every day for 
half an hour, made great progress in learning to write. She be- 
gan to be able, at the end of that time, to write quite legibly. She 
accordingly proposed to Timboo that she should show some of her 
work to her mother. 

Mrs. Cheveril had often seen Fanny busily engaged with a pa- 
per and a pencil, but she supposed that she was only amusing 
herself in drawing horses or men, or in some other childish occu- 
pation, and had no idea of the serious efforts that she was making 
to learn to write. The weather, in the mean time, had not become 
settled, and so no arrangement had yet been made for sending 
Fanny to school. 

“Do you think that I can write well enough yet,” said Fanny, 
“ to show the writing to my mother ?” 


fanny’s improvement. 


105 


Timboo cautions Fanny against taking too much pains. 

“Yes,” replied Timboo, “and you shall write a piece on pur- 
pose to show to her. Only you must be careful not to take too 1 
much pains.” 

“ Too much pains !” said Mark, surprised, for Mark was stand- 
ing by during this conversation. “ I did not know that we could 
take too much pains.” 

“ You can not,” said Timboo, “but Fanny can.” 

“Why can not I,” asked Mark, “as well as Fanny?” 

“ Because you are a boy,” replied Timboo. “ Boys never take 
too much pains, or, at least, they very seldom do. They dash on, 
right or wrong ; but girls are more timid and cautious, and they 
often fail of doing as well as they might by taking too much 
pains.” 

Fanny said that if Timboo would give her something to copy, 
she would write as well as she could, and she would be very care- 
ful not to take too much pains. 

Timboo asked Fanny whether she would prefer to have the 
writing which she was to show her mother in prose or in poetry. 

“ In poetry,” said Fanny. “ I can write poetry better than I 
can prose ; and, besides, it looks prettier to have it in lines.” 

There was another reason why Fanny liked poetry to copy, and 
that was, that the lines did not extend the whole length of the 
page, and so she could get along down the page faster. 

“ And do you want a picture to put at the top?” asked Timboo. 

“Yes,” said Fanny, “I must certainly have a picture.” 

There were two reasons why Fanny wished for a picture. One 
was, that it would make her exercise look prettier when it was 


106 


fanny’s improvement. 


Fanny asks for a new song. She chooses a picture. 

presented to her mother, and the other was, that the picture would 
take up a good deal of the paper, and she would, consequently, not 
have so much to write to get down the page. 

“Well,” said Timhoo, “go and choose such a picture as you 
would like, and bring it to me, and I will see if I can write you 
some poetry about it.” 

So Fanny went up stairs to the drawer where she kept her pic- 
tures, and there, after much hesitation, doubt, and delay, she final- 
ly decided on one which represented two young children standing 
at a cottage door and looking at some snow-birds. She brought 
this picture to Timboo. 



THE SNOW-BIRDS. 


“Yes,” said Timboo, “it is a very pretty one. Leave it with 
me, and I will think of it while I am at my work this afternoon, 
and see if I can make some poetry. It shall be what I suppose 
the children are saying to the snow-birds. Come to me to-mor- 
row morning, and I will have it ready for you.” 


fanny’s improvement. 


107 


The song of the children to the snow-birds. 

Tlie next morning, accordingly, Fanny came out to find Tim- 
boo, and be read to her the following lines : 

THE CHILDREN TO THE SNOW-BIRDS. 

Birdies ! pretty birdies ! hopping on the snow, 

When I go to bed at night, I wonder where you go 1 

Birdies ! pretty birdies ! fly up upon the trees : 

You’ve got no stockings on your feet ; they certainly will freeze. 

Or else — indeed I rather think — perhaps it would be best 

For you to find some pretty bush, and build a little nest. 

Birdies ! pretty birdies ! hopping on the snow, 

We can’t stay with you any more ; ’tis cold, and we must go. 

Fanny was extremely pleased with this song, as she called it, 
and she copied it quite neatly on the sheet of paper which Timboo 
gave her for the purpose. She finished it in two days. Timboo 
advised her not to attempt to do it in less time than that. He 
advised her only to attempt to write two lines in the forenoon, and 
two in the afternoon, until it was completed, and this, of course, as 
there are eight lines in the piece, required two days. 

When the writing was finished, Fanny carried it to Timboo, and 
he gummed the picture at the head of the sheet, a space having 
been left there for the purpose. Fanny then carried the sheet to 
her mother. 

Mrs. Cheveril was quite surprised, and she was pleased even 
more than she was surprised, to find what an excellent beginning 
Fanny had made in learning to write. 

“And how long is it since you have been trying to learn?” 
asked her mother. 


108 


THE BUTTERFLY SONG. 


How and when Fanny used to write. Mark’s visits. 

“About two weeks,” said Fanny. 

“Only two weeks!” rejoined her mother. “You have made 
very rapid progress. I doubt whether you would have learned 
faster if you had been at school.” 


CHAPTER XIX. 

THE BUTTERFLY SONG. 

When Fanny first began to learn to write, the work was so dif- 
ficult that it required a great deal of resolution on her part to per- 
severe in the accomplishment of her task day by day. After a 
little time, however, she began to take pleasure in it. Sometimes 
she wrote at a table which stood by a window in her room, and 
sometimes she wrote in the lodge, at Timboo’s table. Timboo 
gave her a book, and some little white wafers to fasten the pictures 
with on the pages of the book. She usually put a picture upon 
the upper part of the page, and then wrote something, either poetry 
or prose, below. Sometimes, however, she would write her piece 
in the middle of the page, not having any picture at all. 

Mark often came into the lodge while she was there, and, if Tim- 
boo chanced to come in at the same time, the children would ask 
him to play on the triplichord, and sing them a song. They would 
generally, at such times, join him in the music, especially in the 
chorus, if there was one. After a time, Mark learned to play on 
the instrument himself. 

One pleasant evening, just before sunset, Fanny found Timboo 
in the garden, just finishing his work for the day. 


THE BUTTERFLY SONG. 


109 


Fanny asks for still another song. She and Timboo see a butterfly. 

“ Timboo,” said she, “ I wish .you would make us up some new 
songs to sing and play. We know all the old ones.” 

“Very well,” said Timboo. “I’ll try and see if I can make 
you one new one, at any rate. What shall it be about ?” 

“ I don’t know,” said Fanny. “ Let me think.” 

“I must carry these tools in first,” said Timboo, “and then I 
will talk with you about it.” 

“Well,” said Fanny, “let me help.” 

So Timboo gave Fanny a basket which contained the seeds that 
he had been sowing, while he himself carried the rake and the 
spade. In this way they proceeded to the lodge. 

After placing the tools and the basket where they belonged, 
Timboo returned with Fanny to the garden to look about for some- 
thing which might suggest a subject for a song. While they were 
walking thus, a very large butterfly came fluttering along over the 
beds of the garden. It alighted on a currant-bush near, and Fan- 
ny ran to see it. 

“ What a pretty butterfly !” said she. “ What pretty wings ! 
There, he’s going away ! I wish he would stay still a minute and 
let me see him.” 

Fanny ran along in pursuit of the butterfly, and Timboo fol- 
lowed her. 

“He’s very pretty!” said Fanny. “How pretty it would be 
if he could sing a little song, like a bird !” 

“Yes,” said Timboo, “that would be very pretty indeed.” 

“His wings are very bright,” said Fanny, “all covered over 
with black and yellow spots. He won’t stay still, Timboo, any 


110 


THE BUTTERFLY SONG. 


Timboo proposes to write about him. The song. 

where. I might catch him if I had Mark’s cap ; but I would not. 
It would hurt him, or frighten him at least, and that would be 
wrong. There he goes, flying away over the fence! Well, let 
him go.” 

Then Fanny returned to Timboo, and they went walking along 
together as before. 

“ I think,” said Timboo, “ I might write a song about the but- 
terfly.” 

“ Well,” said Fanny, “I should like that.” 

“ It will be a very good subject,” said Timboo. 

“ And we can sing it,” said Fanny ; “ and then, besides, I could 
write it in my book.” 

“Yes,” said Timboo. 

“Especially,” said Fanny, “if I could find a picture of a but- 
terfly.” 

“Perhaps you can,” said Timboo. 

“With some children looking at him,” said Fanny. 

“Yes,” said Timboo, “that would be just the thing.” 

So it was arranged that Timboo was that evening to write the 
song, and that Fanny was to look over all her books and pictures to 
see if she could find any design that would serve as an illustration 
for it. The next morning Timboo produced his song, as follows : 

I SEE A BUTTERFLY. 

I see a butterfly, fluttering along ; 

His wings are very bright and gay, 

I wish he would not fly away ; 

How pretty it would be if he would sing a little song ! 


THE BUTTERFLY SONG. 


Ill 


Fanny tries to find a picture to illustrate the song. 

I see a butterfly, fluttering along ; 

His wings are very bright and gay, 

But I will let him fly away ; 

To hurt him or to frighten him would certainly be wrong. 

Fanny had quite a store of pictures in a drawer in her room, 
and she looked them all over very carefully during the evening, 
while Timboo was writing the song, in hopes of finding one to il- 
lustrate it. There was one picture representing a boy chasing a 
butterfly, but this, she thought, would hardly do ; and when, the 
next morning, Timboo read her the lines while he was at his break- 
fast in the kitchen, she saw at once that it would not do at all. 
She was very much pleased indeed with the song, and she was 
very desirous to have a picture that would illustrate the spirit of 
it truly. 

“We don’t want an ugly boy trying to catch a poor butterfly,” 
said she, in a tone of contempt. “We want some children look- 
ing at him, but not troubling him at all.” 

“ Yes,” said Timboo, “ that’s what we want.” 

“If you had only learned to draw,” said Timboo, “you could 
make one.” 

“ So I could,” said Fanny. “I wish I had learned to draw. 
I mean to learn to draw some day.” 

“Perhaps,” said Timboo, “you could find a picture of some 
children standing in a garden, without any butterfly, and then you 
could draw the butterfly in the air where they are looking. It is 
not much to draw just a butterfly, you know. It is only a body 
and two wings.” 


112 


THE BUTTEKFLY SONG. 


Fanny finds one that will do, only it has no butterfly. 

Fanny was very much pleased with this suggestion. She had 
a picture, she said, that she thought would do exactly. 

“ But then,” she added, “ I am afraid I could not draw the but- 
terfly very well.” 

“ Why, you can see how to draw him,” said Timboo, “ by look- 
ing on the picture where the boys are chasing one.” 

“ So I can,” said Fanny. 

Fanny accordingly ran up stairs to look over her pictures again, 
to And the one which Timboo had referred to, and in a few min- 
utes she returned, bring- 
ing it with her. It rep- 
resented two children 
taking a walk together. 
In front of the children, 
at a little distance, was 
a round martin-house on 
a tall 

tin flying near it. The 
boy was looking up to- 
ward this martin-house, 
and pointing to it at the 
same time with his fin- 
ger. Fanny laid this 
children looking. picture down upon the 

table before Timboo, saying, 

“ There, Timboo, I think that will do. We can make a but- 
terfly in the air between the boy and the martin-house, and we 


pole, with a mar- 



THE BUTTERFLY SONG. 


113 


The picture. 


The house where the children lived. 


can make "believe that it is the butterfly, and not the martins that 
he is looking at.” 

“Yes,” said Timboo, “ that will do very well indeed.” 

Timboo said that the picture could not have been better, if' it 
had been made expressly for their purpose. 

There were various other objects of interest in this picture be- 
sides the children and the martin-house. Directly before the chil- 
dren there stood a rooster and a hen. The rooster was turning 
one eye toward the children to watch them. The hen was pick- 
ing Up something from the ground. Under the martin-house, and 
near the foot of the pole, were two straw bee-hives, with shrubbery 
around them. Farther back were some lambs frolicking in a field, 
and a cow. On the right, a little beyond the children, was to be 
seen part of a cottage. I suppose it must have been the place 
where the children lived. 

Fanny succeeded very well in putting in the butterfly in the 
picture. She took care to place it in the right position for the 
boy to seem to be looking at it. It came in the white space which 
in the picture forms the side of the distant mountain. 

Before attempting, however, to draw the butterfly in the pic- 
ture, Fanny practiced on a separate piece of paper until she could 
draw it well. 

When the drawing was made, she wafered the picture on the 
upper part of one of the pages of her book, and copied the song 
in neatly below ; and that afternoon, Timboo, Mark, and Fanny 
sang it together, very merrily, with the triplichord accompani- 
ment. 

9 


H 


114 


THE STORM AT SEA. 


Timboo’s stories. 


The storm at sea. 


North about. 


CHAPTER XX. 

THE STORM AT SEA. 

Timboo used often to tell the children stories. His stories 
were always entertaining ; for, even when there was nothing very 
remarkable in the facts themselves, the manner in which he nar- 
rated them was so peculiar as always greatly to excite the imag- 
inations of his auditors. 

One rainy evening toward midsummer, Timboo was sitting by 
the fire in the kitchen, splicing a clothes-line for Prudence, when 
Mark and Fanny came out and asked him to tell them a story. 
Prudence was busy here and there about the kitchen at the time, 
but she joined in the request. The following dialogue occurred : 

“ Come, Timboo,” said Mark, “tell us something about your 
voyages. Hid you ever have any great storms at sea ?” 

“Yes,” said Timboo, “I had one once, when I was coming 
across the Atlantic in a steamer.” 

“ Tell us all about it,” said Mark. 

“Why, you see,” said Timboo, “when we left Liverpool the 
weather was southerly, and it looked very pleasant, and so the 
captain concluded to come north about.” 

“ What do you mean by north about?” asked Mark. 

“Why, round the northern end of Ireland,” said Timboo. 
“ That’s the best way when the weather favors. So, when we got 
out of the river, we turned to the northward and sailed along the 


THE STORM AT SEA. 


115 


Timboo’s voyage. 


Waking up at sea. 


The storm. 


coast. We amused ourselves by looking at the cliffs which lined 
the shore, and at the fishing-boats and sail-boats that were going 
and coming over the smooth water. At last we got clear of the 
land, and we went on very well for a while, but the fourth day out 
it came on to blow. 



THE ENGLISH COAST. 


“ The first that I knew of it,” continued Timboo, “ was, I woke 
up about two o’clock in the morning, and found that the ship was 
writhing, and twisting, and struggling, and groaning, as if some 
great sea-monster or other had got hold of her, and she was try- 
ing to get away. ‘Ah!’ says I to myself, ‘we’ve got a storm 
coming on.’ ” 

“And what did you do?” asked Mark, eagerly. 

“Oh, I turned over on the other side,” said Timboo, “and 
brought my knees to a bearing against the front edge of my berth, 
so as to steady myself in the lurches, and then went to sleep again.” 

“My!” exclaimed Prudence. “I could not have shut my 
eyes.” 

“ Oh, I knew that the old ship would fight the battle out man- 


116 


THE STORM AT SEA. 


Timboo’s description of the berths in a steamer. 


fully,” said Timboo ; 44 and besides, I could not do any thing to 
help her, so I might as well stay in my berth and go to sleep.” 

44 What sort of a place is a berth ?” asked Mark. 

44 It is a sort of shelf in a closet,” said Timboo, 44 that people 
sleep on at sea.” 

44 Sleep on a shelf!” exclaimed Prudence. 

44 Yes,” said Timboo. 44 You see, on board a great steamer, we 
have ever so many closets built, all along the sides of the ship, 
around the cabins, and each closet has two shelves in it, one above 
the other, for two people to sleep on. They call them berths. 
The lower berth is easy to get in, but the upper one is quite high, 
and you have to climb up to it.” 

“My!” exclaimed Prudence again. “I would rather sleep on 
a liay-mow.” 

44 Oh, you can sleep very well in a berth,” said Timboo. 44 There 
is a narrow board along the front edge of the shelf to keep you 
from rolling out. I went to sleep holding on to this board, but 
in about two hours I waked up again and heard a dreadful din.” 

44 What was it?” asked Mark. 

44 It was the noise and uproar of the great seas from Spitzbergen 
and Nova Zembla,” replied Timboo, 44 coming down to fight the 
ship and drive her out of the sea. They came on in immense 
troops, roaring, and howling, and tumbling over each other, and 
tossing up their heads and arms, and making a dreadful uproar. 
The ship went on as long as she could without regarding them, 
but when she found she could not get away, she turned round and 
pitched into them, head and shoulders.” 


THE STORM AT SEA. 


117 


The battle between the waves and the steamer. 


“ Which heat?” asked Mark. 

“ Oh, it was a long battle,” said Timboo. “ I lay still in my 
berth and listened. The seas would come on with a dreadful 
fury, and beat against the head and shoulders of the ship with the 
most thundering thumps and concussions, that made her tremble 
from stem to stern, and stagger as if she were stunned. Some- 
times a troop of the monsters would break over on board, and then 
they would run along as fast as possible all over the decks, into 
every corner, and down through every seam, and crevice, and 
cranny that they could open or find open, to see what there was 
below. They would drip down into the state-rooms, and frighten 
the nurses and children, and wet the berths and blankets, and do 
all the mischief they could.” 

“ The rogues !” said Mark. 

“ These surges attacked our steamer more furiously than any 
thing else,” continued Timboo, “ but they beat and buffeted every 
thing that they met on the way as they came along. I looked out 
of the bull’s eye in my state-room, and there I saw a schooner at 
a little distance from us, fighting it out with them. They dashed 
at her with all possible fury, but the little schooner stood it out 
nobly. Just in the midst of it, a long and bright chain of light- 
ning flashed across the sky, and immediately after the lightning, a 
loud, rattling peal of tremendous thunder. At the same instant, 
a monster of a sea dashed over the bows of the schooner, and came 
down in an immense torrent of spray and foam all over her decks, 
and ran about there, knocking every thing to pieces, and doing all 
the mischief he could find to do. ’ 


118 


THE STORM AT SEA. 


Old Billoo. He raises a gang. He breaks on board the ship. 

Here is a picture of the schoon- 
er, as Timboo saw her from the 
bull’s-eye window in the side of 
his state-room. 

“ At last there was one dread- 
ful fellow that came along,” con- 
tinued Timboo. “His name was 
Billoo. He came down from the 
coast of Greenland ; and when he 
saw the ship, he was in a terrible 
fury. He got together a gang of 
fellows around him as wild and fu- 
rious as he was himself. 4 Come 
on,’ says he, 4 my hearties, and we’ll drive this old, smoking, pad- 
dling manufactory to the bottom. She’s no business here.’ So 
they all got together directly before the ship, and they tossed up 
their heads, and roared, and howled, and raged like so many de- 
mons, and when they got to the ship, they came upon her with 
a most thundering concussion. Old Billoo himself struck the 
hardest. He tore away the figure-head, and stove in the bulwarks, 
and smashed in the cover of the skylight,, and sent down a deluge 
of water into the fore-cabin, and broke up one of the paddle-boxes, 
making a dreadful crash, and scattering the pieces in every direc- 
tion over the sea. There was a large saloon on the deck, with a 
great many passengers in it clinging to the tables. Old Billoo 
meant to have swept this saloon off, passengers and all, into the 
sea, but he could not quite do this. His strength was spent be- 



THE SCHOONEK. 


THE STORM AT SEA. 


119 


Old Billoo attempts to carry away the light-house. 


fore he got to the saloon, so he had to scramble off as fast as he 
could, under the bulwarks and through the scuppers, back to 
where he belonged.” 

“What a fellow I” said Mark. 

“He was a terrible fellow, indeed,” said Timboo. 

“While Billoo was doing this,” continued Timboo, “there was 
another fellow just like him, who said to the rest, ‘Let’s go and 
pitch into the light-house on the coast, and knock it over, and put 

out the light, and if 
the old ship does get 
away from us, she 
can’t find her way 
into port, but will 
run on the rocks in 
the night, and so get 
dashed to pieces.’ ” 
Here is a picture 
of the seas attempt- 
ing to overturn the 
light -house, as de- 
scribed in Timboo’s 
story. In the dis- 
tance we see a ship 
scudding under top- 
sails in the storm, 
and trying to get in, 
to port. 



THE LIGHT-HOUSE. 



120 


THE STORM AT SEA. 


Attack made by the winds. The ship escapes. Her arrival. 

“ Then, besides these seas attacking the ship below,” he con- 
tinued, “the winds made a great onset upon her above. They 
thought she was some mill or manufactory that had come off from 
the land to intrude on their domains, and they were in a dreadful 
fury. ‘What business has the lubbering old grinding engine out 
here,’ said they, ‘with its water-wheels and its black chimney, 
puffing the smoke in our faces, and making a mill-tail through our 
blue water V So they made a dash at the ship, and seized her by 
the topmast. The topmast held on as hard as he could, with all 
his ropes, but it was in vain. The ropes snapped one after another, 
and at length the mast gave way, and the winds carried it off, 
creaking and flapping through the air, and finally dashed it into 
the sea a quarter of a mile astern.” 

“ I declare !” exclaimed Mark. “ I should like to have seen it.” 

“You would have been dreadfully frightened,” said Timboo. 

“Oh no,” said Mark, “I should not have been frightened at 
all. I would have held on to some of the ropes so tight that the 
wind could not blow me away.” 

“ The battle went on so,” continued Timboo,” for about eighteen 
hours, until the winds and seas began to get tired out, and then 
the ship turned round again, and began to go on in her course. 
But the winds and the waves, though beaten back, did not give up 
entirely. They chased her, howling, and roaring, and hissing at 
her, and knocking her about all the way to New York — to the 
very mouth of the harbor.” 

Here is a picture of the steamer, as Timboo described her, just 
getting into smooth water at the mouth of the harbor. 


THE STORM AT SEA. 


121 


The ship comes safely into port. 


The end of the story. 



THE ESCAPE. 


“As soon as the old ship got fairly into the sheltered water,” 
continued Timboo, “ out of the way of her enemies, she run up 
her flag, and shook it back at them in defiance. When she got 
up to town she fired two guns in token of victory.” 

Here Mark clapped his hands, and said “ Good!” his eyes beam- 
ing with excitement and pleasure. 

“ Is that all?” said Mark to Tftnboo, after a short pause. 

“Yes,” said Timboo, “that is the whole story.” 

Mark drew a long breath, and said he was very glad that the 
ship got safe into port. 


122 


THE SONGS. 


Timboo’s songs. 


The first song. 


Off and On. 


CHAPTER XXI. 

THE SONGS. 

Timboo wrote a variety of songs, as Fanny called them, for 
Fanny to copy in her hook. Some of these songs he made tunes 
for, and the children used to sing them in the lodge, with the ac- 
companiment of the triplichord. 

One of these pieces was a dialogue 'between two girls named 
Mary Ann and Mary Jane. The piece was entitled Off and On, 
and was as follows : 


OFF AND ON. 

MARY JANE. 

Ah ! Mary Ann, you’re coming in, 

I’m sure I’m glad enough ; 

All this day long where have you been 1 
Come, take your bonnet off. 

MARY ANN. 

No, Mary Jane, I can not stay — 

I just came in for fun — 

And as I soon must go away, 

I’ll keep my bonnet on. 

MAR$ JANE. 

Ah ! yes : you see I can’t go out, 
Because I’ve got a cough ; 

There’s ever so much to talk about — 
Come, take your bonnet off. 


THE SONGS. 


123 


Playing the accompaniment. 


The Robin Song. 


MARY ANN. 

Ah ! no: ’tis nearly time, you see, 

For school to be begun, 

And so it will be best for me 
To keep my bonnet on. 

Timboo made some music for this song too, so that Mark and 
Fanny could sing it. In the performance of the music, Mark per- 
sonated Mary Jane, and Fanny Mary Ann, and each would sing a 
verse in turn, Timboo all the time playing an accompaniment on 
the triplichord. 

Then there was the song of The Robin, which Fanny copied 
into her book under the picture of a robin, thus : 



THE ROBIN. 

The robin hops upon the ground, 

His wings are folded by his side, 

And yet he harks to every sound, 

And watches round him far and wide. 


124 


THE SONGS. 


The riddles. Tic, tic, toe. Answer to be guessed. 

I will not hurt the little bird, 

I will not frighten him away ; 

I will not, Bobby, on my word — 

You need not be afraid to stay. 

I’ll go and get a piece of bread, 

And scatter little crumbs along ; 

Then he will not be so afraid, 

And maybe he will sing a song. 

Perhaps somewhere he has a nest, 

With little robins lying there, 

And while they sleep and take their rest, 

He flies about, no matter where. 

How I should like to have such wings l 
He likes to use them, I’ll engage. 

How loud and merrily he sings ! 

I’m glad he is not in a cage. 

There were also several riddles. Here is one of them : 

TIC, TIC, TOC. 

I have no legs, and yet I run, but could not run a race ; 

In fact, I’m running all the time, yet never change my place, 

And I always keep my hands moving round about my face. 

I have a little key, but it has not any lock, 

And I always keep a talking with my tic, tic, toe. 

By this time I suppose you know that I must be the . 

The last word was not written. Timboo left it for the reader 
of the riddle to guess what it must be. 

Fanny was very much pleased with this riddle, and particularly 
so because the last word was left for her to guess. She guessed it 
very readily. 


THE SONGS. 


125 


The hornet’s work. Flying all about. Another contrivance. 

Another riddle was this : 

THE HORNET’S WORK. 

What some things dig and others spin, 

The hornet makes of paper thin. 

Whoever guesses riddles best, 

Will find that this one means a . 

There was another riddle, which Timboo made one evening aft- 
er coming np with Fanny from New York by the Hudson River 
train. As soon as it became dark, Fanny’s attention was very 
much occupied in watching something which she saw in looking 
out at the window ; but I must not tell you what it was, for that 
would be telling you the riddle. The riddle was this : 

FLYING ALL ABOUT. 

I saw one night some very pretty things, 

Flying all about without any wings ; 

Without any wings they were flying all about, 

And they never came in, but always went out. 

Fanny liked this riddle very much, only she said that it was not 
quite true, for one of the sp — s did come in through a place where 
the window was open a little way, and it alighted on a lady’s dress. 

Among Timboo’s other contrivances for amusing Fanny, and 
interesting her in writing in her magazine-book, one was to put 
two pictures on a page, with lines beneath them, arranged in such 
a manner as that part of the verse should relate to one picture, and 
part to another. Turn over the leaf, and you will see some exam- 
ples of this. 


126 


THE SONGS, 


The double picture. 


Verse divided. 



This dog is very cold, I know ; 

Please, mother, let me take him in ; 
His back and tail are white with snow : 



This girl is hunting for a pin. 


THE SONGS. 


127 



She studied well in study hours, 

And now she’s happy at her play ; 

She’s going to load her boat with flowers : 



This child, I think, has been away. 


128 


oh tom! tom! 


Fanny had a good place to write. The song of Oh Tom ! Tom ! 

Fanny wrote all these things in her book, and as the pictures 
were pretty, she wished to have the writing pretty too, to corre- 
spond with them. So she took a great deal of pains, though she 
was careful, according to Timboo’s suggestion, not to take too 
much pains. 

She had a very good place to write ; for, when her mother found 
that she was really in earnest in her attempts to teach herself to 
write and read, and that she was making good progress, she pre- 
pared a table for her in a little back parlor where she was herself 
accustomed to sit and sew in the mornings. Fanny confined her- 
self to this table every morning an hour, and every afternoon an 
hour. She usually wrote half an hour, and then she read aloud 
half an hour. She improved in her reading so fast, that before 
long it was a pleasure to listen to her, and Mrs. Cheveril used to 
arrange her engagements in such a way as almost always to be 
sitting in the room when the time came for Fanny to read, so that 
she might hear the story. 


CHAPTER XXII. 

oh tom! tom! 

The song of Timboo’s which the children liked the best, after 
all, was called Oh Tom ! Tom ! It was not, however, altogether 
a song. It consisted of successive passages of what is common- 
ly called recitative, with a chorus to be sung at the end of each 
passage. 

The passages of recitative were in prose, and were to be read 


OH tom! tom! 


129 


Mr. and Mrs. Cheveril are pleased with the song. 

aloud by one of the company whenever the piece was performed, 
the whole company joining in the chorus. There were two cho- 
ruses, in fact — one relating to a boy, and the other to a girl ; and 
the prose passage preceding each was made to conform to these 
choruses in respect to the sex alluded to. 

When Timboo first wrote this song, he used to perform it in the 
lodge, with his triplichord for the accompaniment ; but after a 
while, Fanny, who was extremely pleased with it, invited her moth- 
er to go out one day into the lodge to hear it. Mrs. Cheveril was 
much pleased with it too, and as the music was very simple, she 
carried it, in her mind, into the house when she went in, and play- 
ed it there on the piano. That evening the children gathered 
around the piano, and performed the piece before Mrs. Cheveril 
and some company that chanced to come in, and it made all the 
company laugh very heartily. Mark read the prose passages. It 
was as follows : 

OH TOM ! TOM ! 

RECITATIVE. 

Tom was eight years old, and yet he had not sense enough to 
take care of his property. He broke his wagons overloading them, 
or racing hard with them over the stones. He left his sleds out 
in the rain. He dropped his tools among the shavings, and lost 
them there. He ruined his books by tumbling the leaves and soil- 
ing the pictures. He tore his clothes climbing about in places 
where there were nails sticking out, and he never could find his 
cap when he wanted to go out, because he never put it in its place 
when he came in. 


9 


I 


130 


oh tom! tom! 


Lucy’s follies. Tom’s conduct in respect to school. 


chorus. ^ 

Oh Tom ! Tom ! 

What a little donkey ! 4 

One might have looked for better sense 
In any common monkey. 

Tom’s sister Lucy was nine years old, and she was just the 
same. Her drawers were always in confusion. She left her doll 
and her playthings about on the floor, where they were trod upon 
and broken, and all the flowers in her flower-pots died because she 
did not water them. 

CHORUS. 

Oh the silly child ! 

What a little goosie ! 

How can she have so little sense, 

With such a name as Lucy 1 

Tom hated school. He was always late in going, and he spent 
his time, when he got there, in idleness and play. He blotted his 
books, he inked his fingers, he cut his desk, and he made so many 
noises and played so many tricks, that his neighbors could not 
study. At last they turned him out of school, and so, when he 
grew up, he could not do any business, because he could not write 
his letters or make his calculations. 

CHORUS. 

Oh Tom ! Tom ! 

What a little donkey ! 

One might have looked for better sense 
In any common monkey. 

Lucy was selfish and troublesome. She interrupted her father 


oh tom! tom! 


131 


The reason why they sent Lucy to bed so early. 

when he was reading, and when her mother was perplexed and 
busy, she came continually to tease her for something or to ask 
her questions. She would insist on having whatever she took a 
fancy to, and would cry and make a great noise if it was refused 
to her. The consequence was, that nobody liked to have her near 
them. She was always sent to bed very early at night to get her 
out of the way, and whenever her mother or her sisters were going 
to take a pleasant ride or walk, they would never take Lucy if 
they could possibly avoid it. 

CHORUS. 

Oh the silly child ! 

What a little goosie ! 

How can she have so little sense, 

With such a name as Lucy 1 

Tom had a jack-knife. He never put his things in their places, 
and so, one day, when he was cutting with his jack-knife out on 
the step of the door, he laid it down there and left it. In the 
night a shower came up and wet it, and in the morning it was 
rusted and spoiled. 

CHORUS. 

Oh Tom ! Tom ! 

What a little donkey ! 

One might have looked for better sense 
In any common monkey. 

Lucy went to make a visit to her aunt, who lived in a beautiful 
house in the city. She was so troublesome to all the family, that, 
after two days, they made up some excuse for sending her home, 
and would never invite her there again. 


132 


oh tom! tom! 


Tom’s experiment with his cannon. 


Lucy on the banisters. 


CHORUS. 

Oh the silly child ! 

What a little goosie ! 

How can she have so little sense, 
With such a name as Lucy 1 


Tom secretly got a little cannon and some gunpowder to play 
with, though it was contrary to his mother’s orders. He thought 
she would not know. He was firing his cannon one day behind 
the barn, when it burst, and one of the pieces of it went into his 
cheek. The doctor was obliged to come and cut it out. 

CHORUS. 

Oh Tom ! Tom ! 

What a little donkey ! 

One might have looked for better sense 
In any common monkey. 

Lucy would always slide down on the banisters when she was 
coming down stairs, although her mother told her it was very dan- 
gerous, and forbade her doing so. At length, one day, she lost her 
balance, and fell over, and broke her ankle. It was a long time in 
getting well, and then one limb was left shorter than the other, 
and so, forever after that, Lucy went lame. 

CHORUS. 

Oh the silly child ! 

What a little goosie ! 

How can she have so little sense, 

With such a name as Lucy 1 

Tom went down upon the pond to slide, although his father 


133 


OH tom! tom! 


Tom comes near being drowned. 


told him that the ice was not strong enough to bear him. He 
broke through and fell in, and the people fished him out with a 
pole. 



TOM IN THE ICE. 


134 


oh tom! tom! 


Lucy’s little brother John. 


He manages very differently. 


CHORUS. 

Oh Tom ! Tom ! 

What a little donkey ! 

One might have looked for better sense 
In any common monkey. 

Lucy has a little brother named John. He takes pains to be 
quiet and still when he is riding or walking with other people, so 
as not to be troublesome, and so they always wish to take him 
with them. He makes no noise in the evenings, and so they let 
him sit up after the other children have gone to bed. He keeps 
his things in their places, and so he always knows where to find 
them. He takes care of his playthings and tools, and so they are 
always whole and in good order. He studies diligently in school, 
and so he can read and write remarkably well. Every body likes 
him, and he has a very happy time. 

CHORUS. 

That’s the sort of boy ! 

Cunning little duckey ! 

He always does what’s right to do, 

And so he’s always lucky. 

When the children performed this piece in the lodge, and Tim- 
boo was there to read the prose parts, it was always varied a great 
deal from the above, for Timboo would, in such cases, make up 
some new follies for Tom and Lucy, which gave great variety to 
the piece, and made it much more amusing. He would also gen- 
erally draw these new examples from some act of folly which he 
had observed one of the children to perpetrate, and thus exert an 
influence upon their minds to cure them of their faults. For ex- 


OH tom! tom! 


135 


Timboo’s extemporaneous additions to tbe song. 

ample, one day Mark broke the point of a new knife boring a hole 
with it, and the next time the piece was performed Timboo put 
this into it : 

RECITATIVE. 

Tom had not sense enough to know a knife from a gimlet. He 
had a nice new knife one day, and he undertook to bore a hole 
through a board with the little blade. Of course, he broke the 
point off. 

CHORUS. 

Oh Tom ! Tom ! 

What a little donkey ! 

One might have looked for better sense 
In any common monkey. 

The children liked the performance much better when Timboo 
introduced new and original sentences of his own in this way for 
the recitative part. They always, in such cases, listened with 
great interest while he was speaking, and they knew when it was 
time for them to begin to sing by his coming to the end of his 
sentence, and saying Chokus. 

As it is possible that some of the readers of this book may wish 
to perform this piece among themselves some evening, which they 
can easily do if they have a sister who plays upon the piano-forte, 
and if they have been kind and attentive to her, so that she is will- 
ing to take some trouble to amuse them, I give, on the following 
page, the tune that Timboo taught the children to sing to it. You 
can sing the chorus to this tune, or you can make up a new one for 
it, just which you please. 


136 


oh tom! tom! 


The music of Oh Tom i Tom ! The sewing-party. Another song. 


OH TOM ! TOM ! 




I _ V S. w w 



n l 


-|T TV ^ 

Nl V 

t t -2 

^ J — 1 

r i - 


rv "r * v r 

yr W 

0 — 1 

1 m ' 

- 0 0 0 0 

i i t -N r 

•> 

z ^ T i_ : 



00 3 t 


Oh Tom ! Tom ! What a lit - tie don - key ! One 

Ah the silly child ! What a lit - tie goos - ie ! How 


rtr-S N k | 

n 1 

r k ~k K N - 

ph — t 


M M ^ k 1 


•r A j j 

zJ ~rr 



rf 0 — 0 1- — PH 

p P |» 

F# 0 9 * 

0 ... J . r 



V- 0 j i 

0 0 ^ 0—\ 





might have looked for bet -ter sense In an - y com-mon mon-key. 
can she have so lit - tie sense, With such a name as Lu - ey ? 


I would also advise you to get some one to write you a new 
set of prose sentences, so as to vary the piece, and make it more 
amusing in the performance. 

Timboo wrote an entirely new set of sentences for this song to 
amuse a little sewing-party which met one afternoon at Mr. Chev- 
eril’s. It was a party of girls that were learning to sew, and they 
formed a plan of meeting one afternoon a week at different houses 
for sewing. When they met at Mr. Cheveril’s, they sat on chairs, 
and benches, and other seats out on the piazza. The plan was 
to sew an hour, and then to play two hours, and then go home. 
Besides teaching them to sing Oh Tom ! Tom ! Timboo made up 
a new song for them, and taught them to sing it. And they did 
sing it a great many times as they sat together at their work un- 
der the piazza. It was this : 

THE SEWING SONG. 

Nimble, nimble, 

Thread and thimble. 



oh tom! tom! 


137 


The Sewing Song. 


How the tune to ii was made. 


Work away, work away. 

Time for working, 

Not for talking, 

Nor for play, nor for play. 

If the stitches, 

Little witches, 

Come uneven, pull them out ; 

Double, double, 

Toil and trouble, — 

We must mind what we’re about. 

N-double-e-dle, 

Where’s my needle 1 
I have lost it twice before ; 

Never mind it, 

I can find it, 

Looking all about the floor. 

Nimble, nimble, 

Thread and thimble, 

Time for work and not for play. 

Keep the sewing 
All a going 

Till we put the work away. 

The tune to which this Sewing Song was sung was not made 
by Timboo, but by one of the girls that belonged to the sewing- 
party. She was about ten years old, and her name was Laura. 
Fanny asked Timboo to make a tune for the song at the time 
when he made the words, but he said it would be great presump- 
tion in him to attempt to make a tune for young ladies whose mu- 
sical powers were so much greater in all respects than his own. 
So Laura made the tune, standing before the piano, and accom- 


138 


oh tom! tom! 


The music of the Sewing Song. 


Fanny’s tune. How she made it. 


panying herself as she sang. The other girls, after hearing Laura 
sing it two or three times, fell in and sang too. This was the air : 

NIMBLE, NIMBLE. 

THE SEWING SONG. Music by Laura. 




— N N-J— 

— fv if* ij :E 

— 0 0 - 0 — 


0 0 0 

040 E 


Nim-ble, nim-ble, Thread and thimble, "Work a - way, work a - way. 
Time for working, Not for talking, Nor for play, nor for play. 


And now, since I have given you two of the tunes to which 
Timboo’s songs were sung, I will add one more, namely, that of 
the Trotting Song, the words of which were given in a former 
chapter. This tune Fanny made herself. It was as follows : 


THE TROTTING SONG. Music by Fanny. 


\j~m o | \ v 



r 

A Tr £ | n H 

N. V V- k 

N S K N 



n n 7 h 

fi p p p 

y y 1 

V lZ w w w 



0000 

Lj — i 1 


I see a rob -in; His head he keeps a bob -bin’; 
I see a pret - ty Lit - tie Mai - ta kit - ty ; 


-4-1 . . ■ 

N K 1 — 

1 1 — 


Fvl * — * — 0 — 

— 35 — 

1 1 

- • * - 

- A A * 

0 0 V 



Up it goes, down it goes, Bob, bob, bob - bin’. 
Here she jumps, there she jumps, Kit, kit, kit - ty. 


Timboo asked Fanny how she contrived to make such a pretty 
tune for her song, but Fanny did not know how she made it. It 
“ came to her,” she said, of itself, when she was trying to sing 
the words. 



PLAYING IN THE GARDEN. 


139 


Marielle. 


Walking in the garden. 


Josey. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

PLAYING IN THE GARDEN. 

One afternoon in the fall of the year, a girl named Marielle, who 
lived at a little distance up the river from Mrs. Cheveril’s, came to 
make Fanny a visit. She brought her little brother Josey with 
her, who was about five years old ; also her dog Juno. 

There had been several frosty nights at that time, and the 
leaves of the trees had turned yellow and brown ; in fact, a great 
many of them had fallen off, and others were falling. Marielle 
and Fanny thought that they would go out into the garden, and 
see if there were any flower-seeds there that had not been gather- 
ed. So they went out there, and walked about for some time in a 
very pleasant manner. 

At length, as they were going along one of the walks, they met 
losey coming. He was amusing himself in drawing a little cart 
which he had found. He was drawing it along the alley. The 
cart was empty. Josey did not know what to put in it for load. 

“Ah! Josey,” said Fanny, “is this you? Come back into 
the garden with your cart, and we will give you some flower-seeds 
to haul.” 

“ Well,” said Josey. 

So he turned round and ran back into the garden after Marielle 
and Fanny, the wheels of his cart rattling as he went over the 
hard gravel walk. 


140 


PLAYING IN THE GARDEN. 


The bower at the end of the garden. The steps there. Uses of them. 

Fanny’s flowers were in a comer of the garden, in a square bed, 
with a garden fence on two sides, and a little bower upon the oth- 
er. There were seats in the bower, and, besides that, there was a 
seat at the end of one of the walks, by the side of the bed. This 
last seat was made on purpose for the children to sit upon, and 
they called it the low seat. Close behind was another seat, con- 
siderably higher, which answered for a sort of table when the chil- 
dren were seated on the low seat in front ; for although, when they 
were on the low seat, the high one was behind them, yet, by turn- 
ing partly round, they could use it for a table pretty well. Some- 
times they sat upon the high seat and put their feet upon the low 
one. They could also walk up the seats as if they were steps, 
and then, standing upon the highest one, they could look over the 
fence and see what might be going on in the fields or on the riv- 
er, or to observe what was passing along a certain road which was 
visible at a little distance. So this was a very convenient struc- 
ture for them. It answered the purposes of a seat, a ladder, and 
an observatory. 

Indeed, this seat was a very favorite place of resort for the chil- 
dren. In the summer they gathered flowers in the garden and 
made bouquets of them on this table, and in the fall of the year 
they assorted their seeds upon it. Often, too, when it was warm 
and pleasant, they brought their suppers out here. 

The children all went on till they came to this part of the gar- 
den. Josey took his place upon the low seat, and there he sat, 
singing a song, while Marielle and Fanny climbed up to the upper 
seat, in order to look over the fence and see the prospect. 


PLAYING IN THE GARDEN. 


141 


View from the steps. Juno. The children look for flower-seeds. 


They saw the river, with many sloops and boats 
sailing upon the water, and 
the Highlands in the dis- 
tance, shutting in the view. 

Nearer was the road, with 
a lady and gentleman walk- 
ing along in it. The lady 
held a parasol in her hand, 
and a little dog was walk- 
ing by her side. 

“ I wonder if that dog is 
not Juno ?” said Marielle. 

“No, that is not Juno,” 
replied Fanny. “Juno is somewhere about here in the garden, 
you may depend.” 

A little beyond the place where these people were walking, 
the road divided itself into two branches. One of these branches 
turned to the left, and seemed to lead down to some landing on 
the shore of the river. 

After looking at this pretty view a little while, Marielle and 
Fanny climbed down again from the seats, and began to look in 
Fanny’s garden to see if they could find any flower-seeds that had 
not been gathered. They found a few of two or three different 
kinds. They brought these along very carefully to the little table 
behind the seat where Josey was sitting. Here they rubbed them 
out of the receptacles in which they grew, and put them in papers. 

“I am sorry the summer is going away,” said Fanny. 




VIEW OF THE RIVER. 


142 


PLAYING IN THE GARDEN. 


Conversationlietween Fanny and Marielle. The pond and the boat. 

“ Why ?” asked Marielle. 

“Because,” said Fanny, “winter comes next, and I don’t like 
winter very well.” 

“Alike winter,” said Marielle. 

“Why, we can’t go out to walk and play in winter,” replied 
Fanny. 

“ Oh yes,” said Marielle ; “ I go and take walks very often in 
the winter.” 

“Where do you go?” asked Fanny. 

“ Oh, I go a great many ways. Sometimes I go and slide on 
the ice.” 

“What ice?” said Fanny. 

“ Why, there is a long pond down below our garden, and I go 
and slide upon it.” 

“ Ain’t you afraid that you will break the ice and fall in ?” ask- 
ed Fanny. 

“No,” said Marielle; “I can tell when it is strong enough. 
Besides, the water is not very deep.” 

“ How do you know ?” asked Fanny. 

“ Why, I can see the bottom all over it when I am sailing in 
the boat,” replied Marielle. 

“Is there a boat on the pond?” asked Fanny. 

“ Yes,” said Marielle ; “ a small boat, but it is a very safe boat. 
It can’t upset. 

“ Why not ?” said Fanny. 

“ Why, my mother told Parker to get one made so that a child 
could not upset it, and he did.” 


PLAYING IN THE GARDEN. 


143 


Marielle gives an account how the pond was made. 


“ How did they make it so that it would not upset ?” asked 
Fanny. 

“ Very broad and flat,” replied Marielle, “ and the bottom is 
very thick and heavy. It is a good, safe boat, so that we can go 
and sail in it alone.” 

“But I should think you might fall out of it sometimes,” said 
Fanny, “even if the boat would not upset, and so get drowned.” 

“ No,” replied Marielle ; “ my mother took care, when the pond 
was made, not to have any deep places.” 

“ Made !” exclaimed Fanny ; “ was the pond made ?” 

“Yes,” replied Marielle; “my mother had it made.” 

“How can you make a pond?” asked Fanny. 

“ Why, there was a brook there before,” replied Marielle, “ but 
no pond ; and there was a large level place on each side of the 
brook, where the land was not much higher than the water. So 
they took off the grass, and leveled the ground all over, and cover- 
ed it with sand, and then they built a little dam below, and stop- 
ped the water, and that made it rise a little over the level place, so 
as to form a pond.” 

“ I should like to go and sail on the pond with you some day,” 
said Fanny. 

“ Well,” replied Marielle, “ the next time you come to see me, 
we will go down and have a sail there. My mother allows me to 
go whenever I please.” 

Soon after this, the children, not having any very great luck 
in finding seeds, concluded to go off to another part of the garden, 
where Mark was at work taking up flowers from the ground and 


144 


PLAYING IN THE GARDEN. 


The children in the garden. Flowers. The dial. The gnomon. 


putting them in flower-pots for the winter. Josey, however, stay- 
ed behind, playing with his cart. 

When Marielle and Fanny came to the place where Mark was 
at work, they began to help him by watering the flowers that he 
had planted in the pots. Mark was much pleased to receive this 
assistance. 



THE FLOWERS. 


At a distance, in the picture, you see two other young ladies 
walking in the garden, near a place where there is a dial. A dial 
shows what time it is by means of a shadow. 

The three-cornered brass plate which always forms the top of a 
dial is called the gnomon . This gnomon is always so shaped and 
so placed that the upper slanting edge of it shall point to the north 


SAFE NAVIGATION. 


145 


Construction of the gnomon. An excursion. Dolphin accompanies the children. 


star. It is only in that way that the shadow of it will give the 
correct time by the sun. 

It follows from this that the same dial will not answer for all 
places, for the farther north we go, the higher the north star ap- 
pears ; and, of course, the gnomon must vary in shape in different 
places, so as to have its edge point right. 

If, therefore, a gentleman wishes to order a dial made for his 
garden, the instrument-maker must know what the latitude of 
the place is, in order to give the gnomon the right form. For the 
same reason, it is never safe to purchase a dial ready made, unless 
you first ascertain that the place which it was made for is in the 
same latitude with the place where you live. 

The dog that you see on the left, in the picture, is Juno. 


CHAPTER XXIY. 

SAFE NAVIGATION. 

The arrangement which Fanny had made with Marielle to go 
with her and sail in her boat was soon carried into effect, for she 
went to see Marielle a few days after this, taking Mark with her. 

When Dolphin saw Mark and Fanny going out of the gate, he 
concluded, after a moment’s reflection, that they were probably go- 
ing to some pleasant place, judging, I suppose, from their happy 
looks, and he determined to go too. Mark sternly ordered him to 
go back, but he paid no heed to the order ; so Mark gave up, and 
let him go on. 

On their way to Marielle’s they passed an oak-tree that was 
9 K 


146 


SAFE NAVIGATION. 


Mark and Fanny see a squirrel. 


Mark drives Dolphin away. 


growing by the road-side, and Dolphin, when he came opposite to 
the tree, stopped and began to bark. The children looked up to 
know what he was barking at, and there they saw a pretty little 
squirrel on a limb of the tree. His business up there was gath- 
ering acorns for his winter store. 

When Mark and Fanny saw the squirrel, he was standing on a 
limb, looking very much frightened. 



THE SQUIRREL. 


Mark immediately got a stick and drove Dolphin away. 

“Go off!” said he, “and let the squirrel alone.” 

Pretty soon they saw a robin high up in a tree. The robin was - 
singing quite merrily. Fanny immediately began to say, 

“ Pretty little robin, singing in the tree, 

Please come a little nearer, and sing a song to me.” 


SAFE NAVIGATION. 


147 


Autumnal appearance of the garden. 


The rosy apples. 


This was something that Timboo had taught her to say when 
she heard a robin singing. 

When the party at length arrived at Marielle’s house, Marielle 
received them very joyfully, and they all went down together to 
see the pond. They first went into the garden behind the house, 
which was large, and beautifully laid out with many walks, and 
beds of flowers, and fruit-trees. The glory of the garden, howev- 
er, for the season, was almost gone. The flowers had nearly all 
disappeared, except a few of gorgeous colors which blossomed late 
in the autumn. The leaves, too, had fallen from most of the trees, 
and lay upon the beds and along the walks, wherever they had 
been blown by the wind. The fruit had generally been gathered, 
though there was one apple-tree with a number of rosy apples 
upon it, which Marielle said were good. They each of them ate 
one of the apples, standing under the tree, and then they gathered 
several more to carry down with them to the boat. They said 
that they would have them for cargo. Marielle said that her 
mother would let them have as many as they wished for. Pres- 
ently they left the apple-tree, and went down one of the walks 
toward a gate which led into a little field below the garden. • The 
brook and the pond were in this field, at a short distance from the 
gate, and beyond the pond there was a high hill covered with trees, 
which shut in the prospect on that side, and made the place look 
-retired and sheltered. The foliage of this forest was of autumnal 
color, so far as it remained upon the trees. Many of the leaves 
had fallen, and were lying upon the grass or floating on the margin 
of the water. 


148 


SAFE NAVIGATION. 


Miss Anne comes into the garden. 


They all embark in the boat. 


As soon as the children had passed through the gate, Marielle 
ran down a winding walk among some trees, which led toward a 
little cove on the shore of the pond where the boat was kept. 
Fanny and Mark followed her. They had not gone many steps, 
however, before they were stopped by a voice behind them, which 
was calling them. They stopped, and turned around to see who it 
was, and found that it was Miss Anne. 

Miss Anne was Marielle’s Sunday-school teacher, and she had 
come to make her pupil a little morning visit. 

“ Where are you going, children ?” asked Miss Anne. 

“We are going to take a sail in the boat,” replied Marielle. 
“ Come with us.” 

“ Oh no,” said Miss Anne, “you must not get into the boat.” 

“Yes, Miss Anne,” said Marielle, “there is no danger. Moth- 
er always allows us to get into the boat whenever we please.” 

Miss Anne, on hearing this, walked along with Marielle and 
Fanny until they came to the margin of the pond. Dolphin came 
after them. Marielle advanced boldly toward the boat, while Miss 
Anne followed in a timid and cautious manner, saying, “ Take 
care! ’take care!” 

There was a chain and a hook by which the boat was fastened 
to a little post. The post was upon the outer edge of a platform 
built at the edge of the water. The platform was to stand upon 
in getting into the boat. Marielle drew the boat up to the edge 
of the platform, holding the chain in her hand. Then she tossed 
the chain into the boat and stepped in herself. The boat began 
at once to float away from the wharf. 


SAFE NAVIGATION. 


149 


Marielle gets adrift. She proves to be quite a navigator. 

“Oh Marielle! Marielle!” said Fanny, “you are sailing away !” 

Marielle sat down on a seat and smiled. She seemed entirely 
at her ease and unconcerned. Fanny was quite alarmed. Miss 
Anne appeared surprised, but both perceived that Marielle was ac- 
customed to being in the boat, and that probably there was no 
danger. 

A moment afterward Marielle took up a slender pole which was 
lying in the bottom of the boat, and put one end of it down into 
the water. By means of the pole she pushed the boat back very 
easily toward the wharf, and then, by putting her pole in, first on 
one side and then on the other, she brought it up by the side of 
the wharf, so that Miss Anne and Fanny could step in very easily. 
She performed this evolution quite dexterously. 

Fanny got in first. She stepped from the wharf upon the edge 
of the boat in getting in, which made the edge of the boat which 
was toward the wharf sink down into the water so far that Fanny 
thought it was tipping over, and she uttered a faint scream. Ma- 
rielle laughed. 

“ I’m afraid to get in,” said Miss Anne. 

“Oh, Miss Anne,” said Marielle, “you need not be afraid; 
there is no danger. We only tipped down a little because Fanny 
stepped upon the edge of the boat. She ought to have stepped 
over into the middle of it.” 

“Why?” said Fanny. 

“Because,” replied Marielle, “if you step upon one side of the 
boat, your whole weight comes upon that side, and that makes 
one side sink down into the water ; but if you step into the mid- 


150 


SAFE NAVIGATION. 


The proper way to get into a boat. Marielle’s experiments. 

die of it, it presses the whole boat down together, and that keeps 
it steady.” 

44 How do you know that?” asked Fanny. 

“ Parker told me so,” said Marielle. “ He said that the art of 
keeping a boat steady in the water was always to step in the mid- 
dle of it. I’ll show you.” 

So Marielle rose from her seat and walked along the boat from 
stem to stern, taking care to keep as near the central line as pos- 
sible as she walked. The boat was very steady all the time. 

4 4 Now,” said Marielle, 44 I’ll show you how to walk to make it 
unsteady.” 

So she walked back again, only this time she planted her foot 
first on one side and then on the other. This made the boat rock 
violently to and fro, for every step pressed one side or the other 
of the boat deep into the water. Fanny wus frightened, and beg- 
ged her not to do so. Dolphin began to bark. 

“Why, there is no danger,” said Marielle; 4 *the boat won’t 
upset if I stand on the edge of it as long as I please.” 

So saying, Marielle stepped up upon the side of the boat which 
was next the wharf, and supported herself with her pole as with a 
staff. The boat careened — that is, it sank down on one side — but 
not enough to admit any water. Fanny was a little frightened, 
but in a moment she perceived that it became steady in its posh 
tion, though one side was very much lower than the other. 

44 Mother had the boat made so on purpose,” said Marielle, 44 so 
that we children can’t upset it. Parker says that two or three 
children couldn’t upset it if they were to try. But we generally 


SAFE NAVIGATION. 


151 


Dolphin feels very uneasy. 


He concludes to go with the boat. 


try to step into the middle of it, not for safety, but because it is 
pleasant to have the boat steady.” 

Then Marielle and Fanny took their seats, and Miss Anne step- 
ped carefully over the side of the boat, planting her foot, in doing 
so, as nearly as possible upon the middle of the plank at the bot- 
tom of the boat. When she had taken her seat, Marielle put her 
pole into the water, and began to push the boat out upon the pond. 

Dolphin felt quite uneasy at seeing that the boat was going 
away. He ran back and forth upon the bank, barking, and, if he 
could have spoken, I have no doubt that he would have begged 
the children not to go out upon the water. 

“ Don’t be afraid, Dolphin,” said Fanny. “ There’s no danger.” 

When Dolphin found that they would go, he determined to go 
with them, so as to be ready to rescue them from the water in 
case the boat should get upset. So he began to wade out into the 
pond, and as the water was nowhere deep, he found that he could 
accompany the boat all about the pond. So, wherever the boat 
went, Dolphin went too, wading along by the side of it as Fanny 
poled it through the water.* 

“ What do you suppose makes him go with us so?” asked Fan- 
ny. “Do you suppose he thinks he is taking care of us ?” 

“Yes,” said Marielle. “He is taking care of us. If any ac- 
cident were to happen to us, he could help us very much. He 
knows this, and so he keeps near us.” 

Pretty soon after this, Fanny began to amuse herself by taking 
a little stick which she found in the bottom of the boat, and throw- 
* See Frontispiece. 


152 


VIRGINIA’S SCHOOL. 


Fanny asks why Dolphin does not laugh. Virginia’s school. 

ing it out upon the water, in order that Dolphin might go and fetch 
it back again. Dolphin would come with the stick when he had 
got it, and bring it to the- side of the boat, and hold it out for Fan- 
ny to take it from his mouth. 

“What does he do this for?” said Fanny. “Do you suppose 
he thinks it does any good to bring this stick to me ?” 

“No,” said Miss Anne. “ I suppose he knows it is play.” 

“ Then why does not he laugh ?” asked Fanny. 

“I am sure I don’t know,” said Miss Anne. “ Many animals 
understand playing, but I believe none ever laugh.” 

“ I wish Dolphin would laugh,” said Fanny ; “ there would be 
a great deal more fun in his playing, if he would.” 

All this time, Mark, who had gone away some time before, was 
rambling about among the shrubbery on the bank. He saw a 
squirrel there, and he was trying to find his hole. 


CHAPTER XXY. 

VIRGINIA’S SCHOOL. 

I DO not think it is at all surprising, as I have already said, that 
Fanny Cheveril did not like to go to school, for the arrangements 
usually made in schools for children as young as she are such that 
the little scholars have a very dull time in them. It is not so, 
however, in all schools. In many, the teachers adopt such plans 
as to interest all their scholars in learning very much, even the 
youngest of them. 


Virginia's school. 


153 


Virginia’s plans for teaching. The little scholars. The medal. 

This was particularly true of the school of Miss Virginia Jep- 
son, whose history is related in full in the Story Book called Vir- 
ginia. I promised in that story to give some account of her 
school, and of the methods which she adopted to interest her 
scholars in their studies, and this will be a good place to do it. 

“Now,” said Virginia to herself, as she walked along toward 
the school-house the morning that her school was going to begin, 
“ the main thing I have to do is to see how fast I can teach the 
small scholars to read, and the larger ones to write and spell.” 

Accordingly, her first object in making the arrangements for her 
school was to secure those two points. She contrived such plans 
as should keep the scholars employed in reading and writing as 
much of the time as possible. She formed all the children that 
did not know their letters into a class, and taught them together, 
by printing the letters large on a slate, and then holding the slate 
up where all could see. These little scholars, who, not being old 
enough to read, were of course unable to study any lessons, she 
saw plainly it was useless to confine to their seats while they were 
not learning their letters, so she used to let them go out to play 
when they were not thus employed, though she sent for them to 
come in every hour, to say them either to her or to one of the old- 
er scholars. She told them, too, that as soon as any of them would 
learn six letters, she would give them a medal. 

The children did not know what a medal was, but they inferred, 
from the manner in which the teacher and some of the older schol- 
ars spoke of it, that it was something good, and so they were all 
very eager to learn six letters. The first one that succeeded was 


154 


Virginia’s school. 


How Virginia made the six-letter medal. The ten-letter medal. 

a boy named Willie, and at the close of the school that day Vir- 
ginia gave him his medal. It was made of a piece of white paste- 
board, with a pretty border all around it, that Virginia had drawn 
upon it with her pen, and the six letters that Willie had learned 
printed neatly in the middle. The medal was hung to Willie’s 
neck by means of a blue ribbon. 

Willie went home very proud and happy, and his parents, when 
they saw the medal, and found that Willie really knew the six 
letters which were printed on it, were very much pleased, and said 
that they were convinced that Miss Jepson would prove an ex- 
cellent teacher. Willie went about all over the house that even- 
ing, showing his medal, and telling people the names of the let- 
ters. This fixed them very indelibly in his mind. The influence 
of the medal, too, was very powerful upon the other children in the 
class. They were all much interested in examining it when it 
was put upon Willie’s neck, and they all came to school the next 
day eager to learn six letters themselves, so that they could have 
a medal too. 

“And if I will learn six letters more,” said Willie, “may I 
have another medal ?” 

“Oh no,” said Virginia; “it will be nothing now for you to 
learn six letters more. The difficulty always is in beginning. 
After boys have learned six letters, they are so far advanced in 
their studies that they can go on a great deal easier and faster ; so 
you must learn ten letters more before you get another medal. 
That will be a ten-letter medal, and it will be better than the first, 
which is only a six-letter medal. I shall have a green ribbon for 


VIRGINIA'S SCHOOL. 


155 


Interest of the scholars. Willie’s fall. The stone. 

the ten-letter medals, and I must go and buy some ribbon very soon, 
for you will learn the ten letters, I expect, in a very few days.” 

By these and similar contrivances, Virginia awakened a great 
degree of enthusiasm among her pupils for learning to read, and 
also for learning to write, and for making improvement in all the 
other studies which the different classes pursued. 

For amusement in the recess, Virginia contrived to interest the 
boys in improving the grounds about the school-house. The build- 
ing was situated in a very pleasant place, at a corner where four 
roads met ; but the plot of ground where it stood was bare and 
uneven, and here and there, all over the surface of it, the tops of 
stones were to be seen protruding from the ground. One day, 
while the boys were playing before the school-house, little Willie 
fell down against one of these stones and hurt his head. He camq 
in crying. Virginia endeavored to comfort and quiet him, and 
she told him that as soon as the place had done aching, she would 
go out with him and order the stone that had hurt him to go off 
out of the yard. Willie’s curiosity and wonder were greatly ex- 
cited at the idea of sending a stone away, as if it had been a bad 
boy or a dog, and he soon said he was ready. So Virginia, taking 
Willie by the hand, and followed by the other children, went out 
into the yard. 

“Now show me the old fellow,” said Virginia. 

So Willie led her to the place where he had been hurt, and 
showed her the stone. 

“ What’s your name ?” said Virginia, pretending to address the 
stone. 


15(3 


VIRGINIA’S SCHOOL. 


Virginia’s conversation with Hardhead. Digging him out. 

Then speaking in a disguised voice, she answered in behalf of 
the stone, “ Hardhead.” 

“Ah! he says his name is Hardhead,” added Virginia, speak- 
ing to the other children. 

“ How came you here ?” said Virginia again, looking down to 
the stone. 

“ I belong here,” said the stone. “ I’ve always been here.” 

“ Then I think,” said Virginia, in her own tone of voice, “that 
you have been here long enough, and I don’t choose to have you 
stay here any longer to hurt my scholars when they happen to 
fall down in their play. You will please to go off.” 

Virginia paused as if waiting for an answer. 

“He won’t go,” said Virginia, turning to the children. “We 
must see if we can’t make him. Are there any boys here that are 
big enough to dig ?” 

“ Yes, Miss Jepson, I am! I am! I am!” exclaimed a great 
many boys. 

At the same instant, one of the largest boys ran off to a little 
shed that was attached to the school-house, in the rear, to get the 
shovel. This shovel was one that was kept at the school-house 
for the purpose of shoveling the paths in the winter season. 

The boys, when the tool came, engaged with great zeal in the 
work of digging around the stone. At first there was some little 
difficulty, arising from the circumstance that all the boys wished to 
dig at the same time, and there was but one shovel. Virginia, 
however, settled this question by arranging so as to have the boys 
work in turn, each one throwing out four shovelsful of earth, and 


VIRGINIA’S SCHOOL. 


157 


How the scholars improved the school-yard. 

then giving np the tool to the next hoy. In a short time the stone 
was so far disinterred, that, by means of two stakes, which two of 
the boys brought from a fence near by, and used as levers, it was 
pried out entirely, and then rolled away. 

The children were all very much pleased at having thus suc- 
cessfully accomplished their object, and they asked Miss Jepson 
to allow them to dig out another stone. 

“No,” said Virginia, “not to-day. We’ll try another one to- 
morrow.” 

Virginia was afraid that if the children worked too long the first 
day, they would get tired ; whereas her plan was to have them 
persevere, and take out one stone every day, until the yard was 
entirely cleared. The plan succeeded very well. The third day, 
one of the boys who lived near brought another shovel, and after 
that they got out two stones every recess, and thus, in less than a 
week from the time that the work was begun, not a stone was to 
be seen. 

After this, the .boys, pleased with seeing how much they accom- 
plished, undertook the task of leveling the ground. They picked 
all the little banks, and hard, uneven places, with a small pickaxe 
which one of the boys brought, and then shoveled off the loosened 
earth into the places where the stones had been taken out, and into 
the other holes and hollows which they found about the ground. 
Thus the whole surface was made very smooth and level. Then, 
to make the grass grow on the bare spots, they sowed chaff and 
hay-seed, which they got on a barn floor belonging to a farmer 
near by. 


158 


Virginia’s school. 


The shower. 


The growing grass. 


Planting trees. 


“Now,” said Virginia to the children, when they had finished 
the sowing, “ now let us all wish for a rainy day.” 

“What for?” said the children. 

“ So that the rain may water our seeds and make the grass come 
up,” replied Virginia. 

A shower came up in the night and watered the seeds, and in a 
week or two the grass began to show itself a little above the ground. 
Besides the seeds which the children had sowed, the ground, in 
all the bare places, was full of the roots of the old grass, and these 
roots sprouted again after the shower, and grass grew up from them 
anew, which helped a great deal. The children gathered around 
these places, and looked upon the millions of little green blades 
that were coming up so thick all over the ground, and clapped their 
hands with excitement and delight. 

Some of the older boys of the district— boys of seventeen and 
eighteen years of age — seeing what improvements the children were 
making in the school-house yard, came one day and told Virginia 
that they should be glad to help in the work, and they asked her 
if she would not like to have some trees planted. She said she 
should like it very much. So they came one Saturday afternoon, 
and dug up a wide border on each side of the play-ground — one 
border on the north side, and one on the south side — and then they 
went into the woods near by, and got a great number of small trees, 
from six feet high downward. These trees they set out in the two 
borders, placing them quite close together, so as to make a little 
wood, as it were. Thus the trees formed a sort of fringe ; and as 
the boys extended their plantation round on the front side of the 


Virginia’s school. 


159 


The grove around the school-house. 


Deciduous trees and evergreens. 


pl a y-g r °und, toward the road, leaving only an opening wide enough 
for a horse and wagon to come in in the summer, and an ox sled, 
or a horse and sleigh, in the winter, the play-ground was almost 
entirely inclosed in pretty shrubbery. These trees were partly 
evergreen and partly deciduous,* and thus the foliage presented a 
very agreeable variety. 

The trees in front, between the play-ground and the road, were 
not planted very thick, because the boys knew that the children 
liked to see what was passing in the road when they were sitting 
on the school-house steps in the recess, or playing on the green. 

They were, however, planted very thick on the two sides of the 
play-ground, on the north to shelter the children from the wind 
when it was cold, and on the south to shelter them from the sun 
when it was hot. 

Virginia took great care that the work of making these improve- 
ments, and the interest which the children felt in them, should not 
interfere with their progress in their studies. The work on the 
grounds was prosecuted by slow degrees, in recesses and in times 
of leisure, so as not to interfere with the studies at all. Thus 
every thing went on well in respect to Virginia’s school, both with- 
in and without, and when the term expired, the people of the dis- 
trict were so much pleased with the progress which their children 
had made, that, in addition to the twenty dollars a month which 

* Trees, the leaves of which fall off in winter, so as to leave the branches bare, are 
called deciduous, in contrast with trees that preserve their foliage all the year round. 
These last are called evergreen. Thus the oak, the maple, the birch, are deciduous ; 
the pine, the hemlock, and the fir are evergreen. 


Virginia’s school. 


160 


/ 


Virginia’s presents. 


Conclusion of the story of Timboo and Fanny 


they had engaged to pay her as her regular wages, they united to- 
gether, and made her a present of a very pretty silver pencil-case, 
with her name engraved upon the side of it, as a special token of 
their satisfaction. It would be difficult to say which gave Vir- 
ginia the greatest pleasure, the six ten-dollar bills which the treas- 
urer paid her in settling the account, or the pencil-case. At any 
rate, they both pleased her very much indeed. 

But to return to Timboo. He lived a long time at Mr. Chev- 
eril’s, and he continued to assist Fanny in her studies for several 
years, for he studied on himself faster than she did, and so he 
kept in advance of her in all branches of learning. What finally 
became of him I never knew. 

And this is the end of the story of Timboo. 



















































* 







/ 



























































- 



























































% 










































/ 





























JACOB ABBOTT. 


Eu Number of Harper’s Story 
Books , T contain 160 pages, in small 
quarto form, very beautifully illus- 
trated, and printed on superfine cal- 
endered paper. 

The Series may be obtained of Book- 
sellers, Periodical Agents, and Post- 
masters, or from the Publishers, at 
Three Dollars a year, or Twenty- 
five Cents a Number. 

The two Periodicals, Harper’s New 
Monthly Magazine and Harper’s Sto- 
ry Books, will be supplied at Five 
Dollars a year, and will be published 


mom 


EACH NUMBER COMPLETE IN ITSELF 


FRANKLIN SQUARE, N. Y. 


















































• <* A? \ 

<* A 4 



*** -X 


a 5 » 



o • * • A' v, . . * ' « 0 . 

■ 0 jV 6 °‘ a * ^ • - j* ♦ V 

*,°o > ,\»g§W> V „C° ' 

* a 


* 

4 - V c 0 s 

* " 3 %. .V * 

; o* . 

<$ v ,f ^. Ap 5 •* ’ * •"• ^ 

\y . $ « • * fj* A \> % * V ^ 4 , O* <o 

‘ ' ' ^ y % ,<? ,; 

» % «* • ,^PII ' ^ ** • i 

- , '" 4 - «•- ^jv ‘Jffoisl: ,<v.». 






& t • 


,* ^ *« 

«JVl® * ^ J. 0 ^ O. 

A ,VNMn*fc.« nr . \J ♦. 


^ a 0 ° %>**’•''' sF \ % *To # . 0 ' ^ ’’••*• ^ 

J sij-. *> y .£&&, v a° ►*«•*% ^ „ v * 

A f j^YsSj A.® ^ ♦ j5$|2$ * <& * 






♦ ( 5 * 

V. *♦ A w 

% V 0 ° yj/rpi: ’°° ^ • 


4 °* 




• ^ A * j 

°, w z$ 


uV 

4 V ^ °, 


;♦ <r* * 

* A <* ♦j «* fA* O 

V A " <»> 


'b V 


■•■ /' 'v ••»?:■' „■> ! ° v - • 

'v'’.jv..\ ’" J ’ .....'* 

* • ** 


^ - 5 %. . 

• ^°xv 


o 
l» 

<v ^0° 



e,’ A 


a *«».** a <r. 4 **. 4 * % a g v c> 

, ■‘b, A> ,«V. ^ , 0 ^ ,•'•'*♦ 

*. ++J •') 


. -V 


O 

^ a 
w^- ° K 


j° v 



-*- ’xosru** A> .. . 

^ . . V ••••’*»■• 
. '. <*u A o . 

. a. ^ * ^ ♦ 

t r#? 

' » aVA. -. ' 

* ♦♦ • 


iS> t M 


o : 


J? ° 2 p* o 


<*. ♦rTTT* <0^ v> -o.»- A ^ ♦^TT 4 .G v 

-» rt'" # k ' 4 * <A «#'•< fk^ . • fc # * 4 






Wmm 




• ''A * * * Cy O * o ¥ t * A ^ ¥ ^UfKr^ ' ( 

•*<^v** 0 * , * • < * 0 v*" 6°*°^ * a g . , 

^ssswjk* , G U * ■+ o •j^Vv" ^ -Cr ►* / v> 2 J* 

flrv^s^sjlL^ •* *P.. <* •* &\\l//<yb> •* ... a" % * *y. C. » oevT/%^, 



o Ip *7% 

_ - V»Hi\\\X ' V »*> * 

V**** 4 f° *«► * 
'- 0 o v 


' 5 - 0 

^d* .- 



& v ’®§‘ : \/* /«: ’W' :, '* \/ 

,<£? <>, «> vJRvf * av •'Sv. . igiagP^A jp o 

... % '“•■* ^ ^ 7 %vZ \<r % V.-;. A 

• •. °o <** c o^..*-..V 

.°*2Pla-. -w 







0 iP V*. *■ ’ 

% p * 

■‘.TTo* o' 5 \ *♦..,- «, 

*v** ;1£P # 

^ * vwS?* «$? ^ 0 

^V- * * * * * *1^ " 0 • * 

® * * , A n.* 1 / * *2* / 

# <f* / u | * ^ ** O Ay c 

* v ♦VfV7/55*»* O ^ • 

*a4 ?GK&£. ' 









. „ i“\ V 
• A o° ^ 

* -4?' >'k‘£‘. > 

• \> A *>Wa % ^ 

- tl w* ^ 

;/y v \ -.W* 

.0 ^ * atT« .o^ ^ 

0**. y$> 


.* «.?•' o -> m ^.' 0 ^ tt. A • < ‘^ *. 

.r o. •...’> .0' <% -/,•' ^ °o '.■-,« 

V v * ‘ * i» 0 \v # */* " “ 

V 4 » V • ^ :M'-\/ 



P V .. 


^0^ 


c v ♦ 


fc * « 




« 
a 

"o' 

' • * a * ^ ’ • ' ' v 

*0 *1*^ > v % **•■• 

k ; 


WERT 

bookbindh 

Grantville P_ 

Nov Dec 2 988 M 

Quality Bound U 


*“ 1 


^ • » 0 ° 

<%, jy * 

u>9^ * 

A*'* : 

«#* * r v 4 ^ *tf» * 

CL -6 , i * /V ♦ 




rrJI AT 'Wa *'•* A F '.-• 


°. w 
; 

...' jf *c 


- v ' # ^ 
















